When searching for users to swap with, you can set the filter “Logged within last…” day / week / month / 6 months / year to find users who have used their profile in this period.
This doesn’t tell you if they’re active, meaning willing to send out cards, but there’s a good chance that they’ll see your message. But there’s no guarantee that you’ll get a reply.
The accounts are automatically set to inactive if someone doesn’t log in for a month. This is not displayed anywhere in the profile.
There’s 64,123 members currently members in the Forum right now - so not even 10% of the total number of members in Postcrossing.
You can find that number below - we’ve added almost 12,000 new members since mid Jan, 2023:
https://community.postcrossing.com/u?order=likes_received
I personally don’t think that is a good idea because many people go inactive for many reasons. They could be taking a break, have different hobbies (but will come back to postcrossing) , are not feeling it with the official postcrossing ( but still participating in the forum), etc!!
At one point in time ( I am still new so it wasn’t long ago) I went inactive because I was in the hospital for a few days and I would have been sad if I saw that I was deleted while I was away…
I don’t think any inactive profile is hurting anyone… If
you do want to know if they are going to be active again
send them a message through official postcrossing 
What this category about - suggestion. I bounce one out into the arena. I am not familer with the site function. Peace Out 
Then start to get familiar how things work in Postcrossing. Make an effort to learn from your mistake and come back to make a better solution to this issues you brought up.
Yes it’s suggestion and you can discuss it here and “think aloud” too, looking what could work.
Don’t worry if some don’t like your suggestion.
Sometimes new eyes see what old eyes are too used to see.
I think also like @Herzmuschel , those with one sent, zero received, could be deleted.
But not for example if I for some reason took a year pause, I would be sad to see my account gone.
I actually thought these are deleted, where is no sent or received.
My husband and son only use their accounts about once a year, sometimes they take a break for more than one year. Especially my son looks into his Emails only when he knows someone send him a mail (he still needs his Email account only for Postcrossing and for school, so obviously no need to look into very often).
If he or my husband were now obliged to log in here regularly, i.e. more often than once a year, just to prevent an account deletion, then it would lead them to abandoning Postcrossing and actually having their accounts deleted.
Both are reliable, if they have drawn an address, the card will be written in a timely manner and if they have received a card, it will be registered. But both of them absolutely cannot stand being committed to something regular, which is quite unnecessary and does not change the reliability of a person.
I feel it the same way and know from some casual postcrossers that this would also be a reason for them to stop postcrossing.
If I have understood correctly this was a practice in the early days of postcrossing that inactive accounts were deleted after a certain time period. But this caused outcry in members who then maybe years later came back and found their accounted deleted thst the practice was discontinued. Honestly speaking, I get so much joy of postcrossing that ghostcrossers and inactive accounts are least of my problems.
Yes they delete them.
I made 2 fake accounts just for experiment. Both were deleted after months without activity, 0 sent 0 received
As for the suggestion itself, I am in camp ‘let the profiles stay’. I like the ‘part-of-the-history-aspect’. It also would ‘destroy’ the personal sent/received-lists when suddenly there are 20% ‘account deleted’ instead of the current 5%(?) now.
As for the strong reminder emails, I think that could do more ‘harm’ than good, because some reminded users could start again just to loose their energy after a few weeks again, and then start again when the next reminder comes, and so on … vicious circle.
I follow the activity of Austrian users - there are about 15% who have logged in the last two months. If this is true worldwide, 10% forum users is not that much difference (personally, I think it’s much lower, at least users who write, not only read, in discussions I follow)
I’d be curious if they checked official postcards only or if they somehow have a way to verify if someone is active only in the forums. I realize that @LC-Canada pointed out that only 10% of people are active in the forum but those people / that activity should count also.
In my case I never opened the forum. I only signed up for official and then left. I am a bad bad person 
I really like this experimental attitude
In general, I don’t think there needs to save accounts who never send officials. Be it second or the only one account. This is Postcrossing and the profile is for postcrossing. If they don’t Postcross, they don’t need the profile. Also I prefer swaps with someone who sent officials, not a member who never did that.
Agree with you. I would also feel such a responsibility as a pressure. Besides, I have an anxiety disorder, and such situation quite possibly could make me quit Postcrossing.
I would find it quite annoying if I was in inactive for a year (and abit) and then find my account deleted, I’ve been here four and half years to work upto 24 postcards slots, only to comeback and start again with Five 
Poor Suggestion
If you’re really interested in direct swaps try the Forum where people are actively looking for swaps. I occasionally try asking people for swaps on the main site, but I learned early on that I get much more uptake by doing swaps in the Forum.
The other thing you may not be aware of is, many people in rarer countries/territories (those with under 7000 members or so) often get bombarded by requests for direct swaps on the main site - like hundreds of requests in a month & so just can’t keep up with responding to these message requests, never mind actually being able to swap with most of them.
Almost 80% of cards sent come from 15 or so countries - the remaining 20% from the rest of world, so you can see there can be a very large demand for cards from other countries that members in those rarer countries just can’t fulfill.
It’s frustrating, but that’s just the way it is in terms of who has joined Postcrossing & which parts of the world can afford to participate or whether they have a reliable functioning postal system or not.
it is not so much about postcrossers coming back after taking long breaks. but I was asked to send a postcard lately to someone who hasn’t showed up for 7 months, that means, that my postcard will not get registered, travel as long as the allowed time for it to be cancelled, incredibly frustrating. another point is that more an more people register kids of age 1 (!) or 3, saying they are mom or dad, but then never register incoming cards too. There should be an age restrict, cause I suspect these parents from using more than 1 accounts that way. I now get postcards more and faster through postcard lotteries than through postcrossing. Not to mention the number of members growing that send exact the same (selfmade) postcard to everyone, simply cause they collect stamps and don/t care about cards at all. It makes me wonder, how long will I still enjoy it here. Sad
If this was really the case than please contact the support. Addresses of members who haven’t logged in for more than one month won’t be given out because these accounts are automatically set to inactive!
@meiadeleite can you please confirm that it’s a month of inactivity after an account is set inactive!? Thanks in advance!
You don’t get addresses to such members who has not been online for that long.
But you wrote “I was asked”, who asked? Was it official postcrossing card?
You can report such profile, if you feel they don’t register any incoming cards (they can’t keep the account if they never register). There is an age limit here, and an adult should supervise a child account.
But you only keep one profile, you only get one card, right?
Part of the fun is, you “meet” members you would not contact yourself, I think so.
Still I feel you are exaggerating, or just at a weird coinsidence situation.
I have not noticed more and more babies/children, actually less than at some point, or not growing amount of members sending only one selfmade postcard to everyone.
You base these to members you get or whose profile you look. Sometimes things happen in groups.
Sometimes I got many profiles written only in German, now this hasn’t happened for some time.
Last time I wrote like this, the next profile was only German language
But these are not inactive and I hope no one suggest children account or same card sender should be deleted (maybe it was just complaining off topically).
