Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

I had a similar problem a while back where Google demanded a second authentication factor for an account that didn't have 2FA set. It asked for a previous password that the account must have had >10 years ago and I think the answer to a security question that I couldn't answer, because I always use cryptic responses to those and apparently didn't save this one way back when. My rationale was that I wouldn't need any of that, because I knew the account password so there would never be a need to go through account recovery.

Either way, I found a solution to that on one of those Google user support forums: I had to not try and log in to the account for approximately 40 days. After that, it'd let me log in with just the password again. This is apparently because Google keeps flagging the account of getting attacked and requiring a second authentication factor for some reason and the timer for that keeps getting reset after a failed challenge for one of the account recovery factors. After something between 30 and 40 days, I could log in to the account with just the password again.

I made the jump to Fastmail and I'm very happy with it. Web interface is at least as good as Gmail's. Thunderbird keeps a local copy of my emails, I control the email domain. I can create backups. The second you get back in you gotta get off this platform.

Whilst it might not be of help to OP, I suggest everyone else to do a data export for all your important services every once in a while and save it with your other backups.

https://takeout.google.com

https://account.microsoft.com/privacy/download-data

There is nothing google will do for you. I had a similar issue here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31681221

I’m still locked out of my account. December 22nd was the expiration of the domain name I needed in order to unlock it, and it is now gobbled up by another squatting service (Bodi), so I will have to try again next year. They don’t even entertain my offers to buy it.

Let our losses be a lesson to people: get off of gmail asap. They do not care about you. They do not care about the harm they are doing, the memories they are sealing away. All they care about is making money off of your data.

Get off google now. As fast as you can.

I’ll forward this to my friends at Google if you promise that you stop using Google products.

Can someone explain how it’s anything but completely insane for an online service to deny access to someone with a *correct* password??

This isn’t someone getting locked out because they forgot their password (where I can at least understand why the user is at fault).

The fundamental problem here is that there is no way to get support from google that is a human being.

I dream of a day when the US government retakes the mantle of consumer protection. Proposed regulation #2 (after eviscerating privacy violation) is that all services must meet certain customer service standards, including having a way to get to a human being.

I know I am dreaming hard here, but there once was a time when consumer protection was on the rise...

The longer it's been since anyone has logged in, the more confidence Google will have that it's really you trying to log in. In all likelihood you'll be able to get back in within a couple weeks.

This happened to me - I even had access to my recovery mail but google just decided I wasn’t trusted back in my account after I moved to a new country. I contacted every support line I could but alas.

About 3 years later I was magically let back in, no idea why but I would try every few months and it just worked one day. Hope it doesn’t take that long for you.

I love how the HN front page is the only way to reach a human at Google. No amount of money can get you a support ticket opened with an actual person in a situation like this

This is something I'm not certain but worth a try. I have also advised something very similar to someone who lost their parent's gmail ID access.

If you already have another Google ID or your partner/spouse/relative, upgrade to one of Google's paid service such as the Google One. Now, talk to a human customer care for Google One and seek help. I was able to talk a real person with an issue with Google One and the person on the other end knows a whole lot of details (which I was not expecting to be a regular information).

Yes, that might cost you one month's of Google One but worth a try.

Btw, I have never figure out how to talk to a person even when I have 3+ Google Workspace for Business accounts.

I've been locked out of 17 year old gmail account for awhile now because I refuse to sync my phone to it. I only want to login to delete the contents and deactivate the account. It still forwards to my Thunderbird which is how I noticed Google stops dedicating spam protection to un-synced accounts (or something). So, they want me to go away, and I want to go away, but they won't let me go away.

Is it my turn next month to post the google's AI security/support fkd me thread?

Anyway, hopefully the google support outsourced to hn channel can help...

Google gave away the Google Voice number I had since the GrandCentral days, a number obviously used daily with purchased credits in the account and religiously confirmed linked number.

Zero customer support, no way to get the number returned and no refund on existing credits for toll services. And to add to the pain, they won’t give me a new GV number because it sees my linked number as a spam source and never sends the confirmation code.

I am done with this outfit.

A long time ago I created a separate Google account for every of their services. I have the passwords of all of them, but as soon as I try to log in they ask me add my phone number "to make my account more secure". There is no way to click it away or say later. So de facto I am locked out. I won't give my phone number to Google and I don't have a dozen of other numbers. Google is like forced prostitution. You must sell your privacy to their advertising business.

Edit: Have not tried again for quite while. Maybe they change it some day? Well I have given up all hope and try to avoid them as much as I possibly can.

I ran into a bug where the recovery account token wasn’t working. I found no way to contact google about it.

Until there is regulation, you’re probably going to be out of luck.

Did you follow the steps at https://support.google.com/accounts/troubleshooter/2402620 ?

I'm confused, how could Google ask for the OLD password? Is this even a thing? I have no idea what my old password is.

Sorry to hear that, this really sucks. Shows once again how authentication is still not a solved problem.

I switched to posteo.net recently and have not looked back since, can only recommend a paid email provider. Different level of support and assurance when you are a paying customer.

Please consider waiting for one day, before re-trying with your valid password. Your account will be auto-unlocked after a cool-off period.

It helped me in the past.

My strategy is to only use GMail and no other Google service at all (cloud, ads, ...)

This way there is little possibility of somehow being labeled as fraudulent.

Google's strategy of locking out people from "everything" is just insane!

Someone needs to lawyer up and make them pay through the nose for stealing access to individual’s personal data that doesn't even belong to them.

If you have it tied to an android phone, even without two-factor, there is a hidden way to generate a code it will take under security

Not all accounts seem to have this but I did. I do NOT have two-factor and eventually the "try another way" method offered to take me through the android code generation and it let me back in.

> *"Sign in With Backup Codes"*

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/1187538?hl=en&co=...

This prompted me to download Thunderbird - was very easy to get started (it basically provided a wizard with some basic inputs and started fetching messages immediately using POP).

Welcome to the club, I've given up on Google altogether.

Do you not have any of your recovery codes left?

Whenever I think about migrating my "primary" email to be at a domain I own, I come up with the following risk calculus:

What's more likely:

A) That i get locked out of Gmail for some byzantine reason I can't get out of B) That for whatever reason (new card, I'm in the hospital, whatever) I forget/am unable to renew my domain and it gets sniped.

Hope you get your account back.

I’ve been on the fence about migrating off Gmail, but after reading threads like this, I put a contingency plan in place. Backups of my Google account are done hourly, and I have a custom domain/workspace account so I can move the domain elsewhere if needed.

I only use Google as a secondary account now, though most of my family continues to use it (under a vanity domain, grandfathered in after lo these many years). I still keep my Google 2FA active, though.

I use pobox.com to forward my primary domain. Right now I have mail forwarded to their "mailstore," which is essentially a lite version of Fastmail.com (Fastmail owns POBox, or the other way around, don't remember), but I can forward to multiple mailboxes. It costs $50 a year, just like Fastmail, but I think it's a little more flexible, at least for my needs.

Its not reasonable to have your primary email be gmail anymore

I feel sorry for you.

Someone at Google PLEASE, PLEASE, make it enough for a registered phone number to reset the password. I got my phone number with my passport, it is the last thing that don't need any verification. Why is it not necessary? AND stop sending verification email to the email address I am recovering. It is a sick joke.

I'm sorry this happened to you. I feel lucky that I moved to FastMail + a custom domain before this happened to me! :<

I am sorry to hear about that. The state of customer support is really sad these days. If you figure out how to get back into your account, you should make sure you generate physical recovery codes. That should prevent you from being permanently locked out of you account.

The anti-Google frothing here has gotten so extreme it's crossed into comedy. Maybe instead of assuming incompetence and malevolence you should consider how hard it is to do this perfectly.

You don't have to like them, but the fact is the there are many many smart and competent people working on these systems trying to do the best for all users of Gmail and Google Accounts. Every day there are hundreds of very bad people around the world trying to gain access to Gmail accounts to do very bad things using that access. All the worst parts of humanity have found their way to leverage it. Balancing security and user-friendliness is one of the hardest problems in tech and it's impossible to do perfectly.

It seems from this thread that the OP did regain access and it didn't take that long.

Edit: I worked at Google for a few years, including on Gmail, and know that the people there really do care about all these things. But I left in the summer, no longer their employee.

Incidentally, another Ask HN today was about running your own mailserver:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34117386

Google has no interest in you or your problems.

I recommend watching the "Talks at Google" channel on youtube to see the kinds of things that interest the people at Google.

I'm getting pretty tired of these threads. We've seen them for years and years and years. At this point, anyone still using gmail is a PEBKAC error. Move!

You're not alone in this sh*. I'm here too. And there are dozens of threads here with the same problem. May the Universe help us.

If you don't backup your data in 2022+ it's entirely your fault.

After losing my own 10 year old Gmail and running around the internet hunting down employees for 5+ months only to get a canned automatic response.

I learned to not trust any service. Ever.

I've even been hacked by rouge employees of fortune 500 companies. Only because of my experience I was able to get my account back after being hacked for 5 - 10 minutes.

Backup yo shit fam. - IT guy who has been backing up to 3+ different hard drives since 2008.

> because (like a fool)

You are no fool. No doubt you are way above average intelligence. This so-called "security" ecosystem of Big-Tech is a dumpster fire of rotting clinical waste. Hope it doesn't spoil your holiday break - and for goodness sake make a New Year Resolution - to quit this madness forever.

Is there someone else around you trust and that could read the QR code on his/her smartphone ?

I'm guessing you didn't pay for it so there is no hope in this case

I have two gmail accounts and one of them did that to me several years back.

But both accounts do nothing but forward to my fastmail account where I have rules setup for them. So it was a giant nothingburger for me. If they're so secure even I can't log into them, whatever.

I don't trust google with anything of mine. I used to use their online spreadsheet app to track house bills, but moved it to my local share where I use libre office instead, solely because I'm aware of how likely it is I get locked out of everything at some point.

Everyone should treat google like they treat their laptops: With the assumption that it can die at any given time and so backups are critical.

This is probably the #500 post on HN that reads "help I've been locked out of my Google account for Kafkaesque/inexplicable reasons and I have nobody to reach out to".

If you're still using Google products as your primary drivers, then it's entirely your fault.

Do yourself a favour in 2023: drop Google and all the filthy excrement that they produce. There's plenty of much better alternatives, and from a purely market-based perspective Google deserves to rot in hell for all of its sins and shitty products.

Yikes! good luck, hope it works out. This is scary. Gmail is still, by far, the best email app. Something like this could happen to me and, I suspect, a lot of other people.

Lesson learned, don't do unnecessary stuffs while everyone is on holiday.

You don't matter for Google and creating HN spam threads won't change that. At worst, it will solve your particular problem and invite similar spam threads from other victims of faceless corporations.