Elon Musk says Twitter is purging inactive accounts to ‘free up abandoned handles’

• Twitter is purging inactive accounts in a bid to free up usernames, said Elon Musk.
• Musk said purged accounts will be archived in response to concerns that old tweets may be deleted.
• Musk did not detail the full scope of the sweep, and did not say if purged accounts can be reactivated.

Elon Musk warned Twitter users on Monday that the platform is purging accounts that have been inactive for a few years.

“We’re purging accounts that have had no activity at all for several years, so you will probably see follower count drop,” Musk tweeted.

He later said the accounts “will be archived,” in response to a tweet from video game developer John Carmack, who was concerned that content from inactive accounts may be deleted wholesale during the purge.

Musk didn’t detail the full scope of the purge, nor did he specify precisely how long an account would have to be idle for it to be archived. He also didn’t say if or how people might re-activate their inactive accounts.

“But it is important to free up abandoned handles,” Musk wrote in a follow-up tweet.

Twitter’s current inactive account policy says users should log in at least once every 30 days or risk being “permanently removed.” It defines inactivity based on whether a person logs into their account.

Under the years-old policy, inactive accounts typically get to keep their usernames, and their handles aren’t released to active users.

Twitter responded to Insider’s request for comment with an automated message that did not address the query.