Deactivation of inactive Meetup accounts (effective Jan 15, 2026)

MEETUP Announcement today. To let you all know that this is an announcement most organizers received from Meetup Central. The clean-up is a 💡 great idea 💡 as many groups have falsely inflated member numbers with thousands of “non active members” 😫 that are “dead wood” in the system! This group will have many inactivated accounts!!!! Comments?? Post below.

From Meetup: Starting January 15, 2026, MEETUP will be deactivating Meetup accounts that have been inactive for 3 years or more. This change is part of our ongoing commitment to data protection, platform health, and regulatory compliance.
Below, we explain what’s changing, why it’s happening, and what it means for your group.

Why we’re making this change
In line with the GDPR’s data protection principles, we will deactivate accounts belonging to users who have been inactive on Meetup for 3 years or longer.
In this context, “inactive” means that a user has not interacted with Meetup at all — including:
opening or engaging with Meetup emails,
using the Meetup mobile apps,
or visiting the Meetup website.

What we’ve already done
Before proceeding with account removals, we reached out directly to all affected users to give them an opportunity to re-engage.
Any user who interacted with that email will not have their account deleted.

What organizers may notice
As a result of this operation, some organizers may see a one-off decrease in their group’s member count shortly after January 15, 2026.
While this change may appear sudden, it reflects the removal of long-inactive accounts rather than a loss of active or engaged members.

How this affects group visibility and ranking
We want to be clear: total historical member count is not used as a metric to rank or surface groups on Meetup.
Group visibility is based on a combination of factors such as:
activity,
engagement,
and overall group quality,
among others.
This means that active, well-run groups will continue to be discovered and recommended as before.

What happens going forward
The same inactivity rules will continue to apply in the future. However, after this initial cleanup, account removals will happen much more gradually over time, avoiding large, sudden changes.

Questions or concerns?
If you have questions or concerns about this change, our Customer Support team is available and happy to help.
We appreciate your understanding and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Thank you for helping us keep Meetup a safe, healthy, and engaged community. Product Team