The original post: /r/privacy by /u/Dream-Ambassador on 2025-01-21 21:56:35.

I have been using an email address (gmail) for decades… literally since I was first invited to Gmail in like 2000 or thereabouts. It has appeared in multiple data breeches and I have used it to create soooooo many accounts. Many of the accounts I no longer even use. For many years, probably until the last 5 years I never even thought about digital privacy whatsoever. I havent used AT&T in a decade but it looks like my email address was released in their breach (and like 12 other data breaches). Im trying to go through and clean up/delete these accounts but its… its so much work. There are 100’s of accounts that I no longer even use associated with this particular email address. Of the 10 or so I’ve tried to deactivate, I have had to reset the password on every one in order to log in to deactivate. 2 websites no longer even exist as far as I can tell (1 appears to have become a differently named platform but may still have my email address in their records).

Should I simply create a new email address and change all of the accounts that I currently use and wish to continue using (for example my banking, apple ID and health care companies) to a new email address? Probably something like Proton rather than google this time…

Doing this would leave that version of me in the past to some extent, right? and it wouldnt matter if any of those 100’s of remaining accounts I signed up with using that email address were breached because none of my moving forward data would be associated? Is there any guide out there that I can follow to ensure that in creating a new email address my exposure will be limited?