How to (hopefully) restore your Gmail account if you lose access

Losing access to your Google / Gmail account can be an incredibly frustrating and unhappy experience. While researching this article, I came across several accounts of people whose access had been blocked after forgetting their passwords – and a few who still couldn’t get them back, even after several weeks.

Google provides a list of methods to try if your account has been blocked, either because you forgot your password or because someone hacked your account and changed it. Sometimes they work.

Your options beyond Google’s suggestions may be limited, so it’s best to be prepared in advance. Here are some suggestions to put you in the best possible position to collect your belongings.

Back up your account regularly

If you ever lose (knock on wood) access to your account, it will be less of a blow – and your blood pressure is less likely to rise – if you have a recent backup of your data. Google provides you with a way to download your data which it calls Takeout. You can download all the data from all of your Google apps, or some of them, or just a single app like Gmail.

Download formats vary depending on the type of data. Your email will be downloaded in MBOX format, which can then be downloaded into another Gmail account or most other email services or apps.

Keep track of your old password

One of the ways Google verifies your identity if you lose your password is by asking you to enter your old password. If it’s been a while since you’ve changed your password (assuming you’ve already changed it), it may be difficult (if not impossible) to remember that old password. So when you change your Google password – and it’s not a bad idea to change it regularly – keep track of your old password in a safe place.

A good strategy here is to use your password manager – you use one, don’t you? – to keep track of old passwords. Most password managers offer to update the existing entry for an application when you create a new password; if possible, you can choose to create a new entry, then go back and change the old one to say something like “Gmail – old password”.

If you don’t use a password manager (and if you’ve lost your password, chances are you haven’t) then you might be able to keep a list of old words. password in an encrypted file. In case.

Check what recovery information is available

It’s a good idea to provide Google with as much recovery information as you feel comfortable with in advance so that if you ever need to verify your identity, you have a choice.

• Go to your Google account page then click on “Security” in the left column.
• Scroll down to “Ways to verify that it is you”.
• You will see if you have saved a recovery phone number or a recovery email. (Note: If you have entered an answer to a security question in the past, you will also see it in the list; however, if you click on it, you will receive a notice telling you that Google no longer supports question security. .)
• If you have not completed any of these fields, it may be a good idea to complete at least one. If you want to be really careful, go ahead and enter your information. Here’s how.

Set up a recovery email account

Your recovery email account could be another Gmail account, another email account from another service, or even a relative or friend’s account. (Make sure that relative or friend is safety aware.)

• Go to the “How we can verify that it is you” section (see above) and click on “Recovery Email”.
• Enter the recovery email address you chose and click “Verify”.
• Google will send a six-digit verification code to the email address you entered. Go to your email, copy the code and return to the recovery page to enter the code. (You have 24 hours before you need to get another code.)
• You should get a small pop-up stating that your recovery email has been verified.

Configure a recovery phone number:

• Go to the “How we can verify that it is you” section (see above) and click on “Recovery Email”.
• Click “Add Recovery Phone” and enter the phone number in the pop-up window.
• Google will send you a verification code via SMS to this phone number. Enter it in the pop-up window.

Remember when you started the account

If all else fails, Google may ask you when you created the account. Personally, I have no idea when I started most of my Gmail accounts; if you want to check when you started yours, the easiest way is probably to find your first gmails (now when you have access to your account) and keep that information in a safe place. (This, of course, assumes that you weren’t efficient enough at deleting all of your old emails; in which case it won’t help.)

• In your Gmail account, go to the menu on the left, find “All messages” and click on it.
• Look in the upper right corner for the number of emails you have. (It will say something like “1-50 of 2,000.”) Click on it and select “Oldest”.
• Your email will now be sorted in the order of oldest first; if you (like me) weren’t very good at deleting emails, this should give you some idea of ​​when you started the account.

Google offers other tips for those who are having difficulty restoring their websites, including sending all possible information using your usual computer to the same location you usually calculate and using your usual browser.

Recover your password

What if you actually lost your password or if you can’t access your account for some other reason? Well, you go to the Google recovery page and start answering these questions.

Unfortunately, when I tried it on a test account, I realized that my options were indeed limited. I was first asked for the last password I had used, then a verification code for my secondary email, a verification code for my phone and the answer to my security question (despite the Google’s claim that it no longer used security questions). When I pretended I didn’t have any available, the last screen just asked me to try again. I went through all the rigmarole again – and was once again asked to “try again”. No alternative was offered.

You can also try going to the “Unable to sign in to your Google Account” page and selecting one or more of the choices provided to see if there are other options.

But be aware that while you can enter the information that Google’s bots ask for, that may not be enough. In 2017, tech reporter Ron Miller was blocked on his Google Account; in an article he described his extensive work.

So what can you do If you really want to keep your emails – and other Google data – available, make sure you have as many ways as possible to restore your account, and don’t forget to back everything up, just in case. Otherwise, after you’ve tried everything you can, you may need to do what Google suggests at the bottom of its “Tips for Completing Account Recovery Steps” page – and create a new account.