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What would you do if you lost your Google account?

• zoom6628 6y ago
  This is one area where diversification is a good risk strategy. I was forced to think about this carefully when moving to China. After 12 years I was happily and safely a mixed user of yahoo and Outlook for email. I'm interested in tech, software and, making things so an awful lot of the Google-prison is as uninviting as the Apple-prison. I only use the tools that give me the choice to use for no other reason than fit for purpose. So I had no YouTube, instagram, tumble, Facebook and a whole lot more. No loss and nothing missed whatsoever. My advice is for all free services assume random removal. Prepare for that.
  • nyuszika7h 6y ago
    Outlook is known for silently discarding emails it considers "spam" and returning a 200 OK to the sender, assuring them that their email was delivered, but it won't show up even in the spam folder.
• robin_reala 6y ago
  How is it that backing up your data has become a “one more thing” for “super-paranoid people”? Sigh.
  • chrisandchris 6y ago
    Cloud is not a backup. Seems a lot of people tend to forget that.
    • foepys 6y ago
      Copying the data to an external drive and keeping it in the same location as the original is even worse. Where do it put it? The bank only has so many safe-deposit boxes - mine doesn't have any available atm. Giving the drive to friends or family isn't viable either because I need to encrypt the data and need to store the keys somewhere. So the cloud, i.e. AWS, Azure, Backblaze, etc. is actually a pretty good place.
      • diffeomorphism 6y ago
        It is not either or. There is a reason why it is 3-2-1. > Giving the drive to friends or family isn't viable either because I need to encrypt the data and need to store the keys somewhere. ? You don't need to store the keys anywhere, just a password. And even if you can't remember passwords, the threat model "friends and family" allows for easy passphrases or even sticky notes with password hints.
    • HenryBemis 6y ago
      Depends on the "Cloud".. cloud is and will always be "someone else's computer, somewhere else". Google Drive is not a backup. Carbonite (or Crashplan) is a backup solution. Of course a successful backup needs to be at least "3-2-1". Not "1" (Google Drive).
      • deathtrader666 6y ago
        Why isn't Google Drive considered backup?
        • protomyth 6y ago
          Well, if they nuke your Google account, it would probably be good to have a backup with a different company.
      • Multicomp 6y ago
        One thing I'm excited for is when syncthing implements encrypted devices, so that I and a family member can have syncthing folders that we share with each of them for each of our respective backups. They share data with me and my computer holds it safely for them even though I can't read it myself, and vice versa. their house burns down or is flooded? They have their data ready to download from my machine. Same for me. No cloud provider necessary. I want more redundancy? Add more encrypted devices somewhere else, whether it be the family member living out west, the former coworker living in Japan, or the vps I bought for $5 on sale one day.
• askvictor 6y ago
  Cry for a while. Then use it as an opportunity to break my dependency on Google.
  • HenryBemis 6y ago
    And HN is a very good resource on "how to divorce with Google". I remember reading many articles/discussions on this topic. Thankfully I rejected the opportunity to "date" Google when all my friends were jumping on that train many many years ago :)
• ggm 6y ago
  It's reached the point where five or so agencies have a de-facto oligopoly over our digital life and the t&c are written almost totally in their favour. I took a .zip of my digital life last year, and I intend renewing it periodically.
  • asadhaider 6y ago
    If you don't already, you can set Google Takeout [0] to create an export of all your Google data every two months for 1 year and it'll email you when it's ready. I download my data and move it to an archive drive, it would be cool if there was a way to automate the process of downloading and storing x latest archives but I haven't looked into it. [0] https://takeout.google.com/ https://takeout.google.com/
    • justinclift 6y ago
      Note that Google Takeout apparently crashes/doesn't work for some people, and there doesn't seem to be a help point for people to get it fixed. :(
    • ggm 6y ago
      This is precisely what I did. You just said it betterer
    • jftuga 6y ago
      What happens after the year is up? Will it notify you that you need to reinitiate?
  • emilburzo 6y ago
    There's also some things that can be automated, so you don't have to remember to do it. That's what I did for Drive, Photos and Gmail. I setup cron jobs to automatically pull everything from there and save it locally.
• LilBytes 6y ago
  "I’ve been using the same Google account for the last 12 years. And to be honest, I’ve never changed the password and never turned on the 2-Step Verification because I was afraid that I’ll lose my phone or forget my password and I won’t be able to access my account any more." Should I even bother to keep reading?
  • xfitm3 6y ago
    It's a decision I'm sure the author deeply regrets. The author has another post on their blog promoting security practices[1]. Just going to the settings pane to enable 2FA shows your backup options: backup codes, sms, webauthn, etc. I only remember one password, and that's the password to my password manager. The rest are arbitrary random strings. Always use MFA. I employ efforts to make it difficult for an attacker to port my phone number, too. At this point in the maturity of the internet these measures should be a no brainer, but it's a good reminder of how far we have to go. [1] https://blog.viktomas.com/posts/security-is-like-ogres/ https://blog.viktomas.com/posts/security-is-like-ogres/
• taneq 6y ago
  Be glad that I started distancing myself from their services years ago. All I’d lose is the spam that my old account has been hit with since then.
• Animats 6y ago
  "One of my other Google accounts actually have been inactive for so long that Google doesn’t trust me when I enter the password and there’s no way to recover." Hm. That probably means I have lost my Google account. The last time I logged in was in 2013.
  • londons_explore 6y ago
    As long as the password you used isn't in popular password dumps, you'll still be able to log in fine. Check your password here: https://haveibeenpwned.com/Passwords https://haveibeenpwned.com/Passwords For very old accounts, they'll normally force you to add a phone number or recovery email address though.
• HenryBemis 6y ago
  > But if I lose my phone my number is gone too since I always use prepaid. Writee is obviously NOT in Europe, where even to get a prepaid you need ID/passport. That way you can keep the same number forever (if you abide to the "add funds even X months). I have phone numbers in 4 countries (that I tend to visit 'often' and all I need to do is add €$£10 every six months to keep them alive. So one solution for that is to go to that ISP of yours and ask them to bind your number with your ID. And if you lose the SIM one way or another, you show up with your ID/passport and in 10mins you walk out with the same number.
  • jotm 6y ago
    That's not really true. Every SIM I ever got, no one ever asked me for actual ID. Yeah, some required me to fill in a page with my info, I could've written anything there. Doesn't that cause the opposite problem - for example, someone with access to your prepaid account could change that data and go clone your SIM?
    • diffeomorphism 6y ago
      That is definitely true in Germany. You can buy a sim at Aldi without ID, but you still need to activate it before using it. For that you need an ID.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• isoprophlex 6y ago
  I would cackle in hexadecimal and cherish my Rube Goldberg-esque setup of cross-cloud syncs and backups. Also, for anyone thinking about giving up gmail: check out fastmail. I never regretted switching my email over to them.
• anonytrary 6y ago
  Not much. I guess at some point you realize how much you depend on things and how a single point of failure could greatly perturb your life. Unfortunately diversifying your identity is not as easy as diversifying, say, your stock portfolio. Are people willing to lose parts of their identity in the same way they're willing to lose parts of their assets?
• tsbinz 6y ago
  The article seems only to focus on what happens if you lose your ways to authenticate, but another possibility is getting caught in some weird ban wave like spamming emotes on a youtube stream when the streamer asks you to (https://9to5google.com/2019/11/09/google-account-bans-youtube-emote-spam-markiplier/ https://9to5google.com/2019/11/09/google-account-bans-youtub...) (most of these bans seem to have been reversed, but I don't know if that would have happened without the publicity that came from a popular youtuber calling out google for banning his fans ...)
  • grenoire 6y ago
    It's still absurd to me that you can get a full account ban for anything, no matter how big or small. Why aren't these bans more fine-grained? Is it so difficult?
    • jotm 6y ago
      But hey, everybody loves the single account login! /s
      • winter_blue 6y ago
        This just reminded me how dangerous and foolish it is to use Google as an OAuth sign-in method. I’ve idiotically done this for a bunch of major services, including freaking medium.com, among many others. Can’t believe I’ve been so careless. Now I worry and wonder how hard it will be get back to regular email & password.
        • robin_reala 6y ago
          Depends on the service. Sometimes you have to delete your account and start again unfortunately. But if you can, a password manager is a much better solution that generally doesn’t leak information about all systems an account uses to the account provider for the purposes of targeted advertising.
    • londons_explore 6y ago
• nikanj 6y ago
  Do my best to get my story to HN front page. That's the only thing that actually works.
  • oarsinsync 6y ago
    What’s your story?
    • AnssiH 6y ago
      They mean that in case they would lose their Google account, they'd try to get the story of losing it on the HN front page so that someone from Google sees it.
      • oarsinsync 6y ago
        Gotcha, thank you for explaining. Tragically, that makes sense based on what I've seen on here over the years.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• mehrdadn 6y ago
  > One of my other Google accounts actually have been inactive for so long that Google doesn’t trust me when I enter the password and there’s no way to recover. Is there genuinely no solution to this?
  • jotm 6y ago
    Oh yeah, they won't even let you access Recovery if you haven't logged in for a long time and all of your devices are new to Google. Pretty funny.
  • realusername 6y ago
    I have one account in this situation and no there's no solution at all.
• chrisma0 6y ago
  "There is one more option for super paranoid people. Backup all your data." I would argue that this should apply to everyone, not just the paranoid! The fact that most companies make this easier nowadays, like the linked Google Takeout, is actually a real, useful improvement.
  • londons_explore 6y ago
    There is no "Google Takein"... If you backup regularly, you should also restore to test it works properly, and the reality is there is no decent way to restore a google takeout archive to another google account, or any competing service. The closest you'll find is a hodgepodge of scripts to incompletely restore some data...
    • chrisma0 6y ago
      A really good point! Not really a completely useful backup until it can be restored and tested...
  • BelleOfTheBall 6y ago
    It feels weird to see this called super paranoid, I've been backing up my data ever since my first PC went belly up on me. Didn't have much on it but lost some photos, so now I keep everything backed up and still break out into a sweat the moment my laptop starts making any unusual noise. Technology isn't perfect so a backup is a must for anything of value: whether financial or sentimental. For a good example of why backups matter, look at the history of Doctor Who. They didn't leave any backups of parts of the original show because they figured those were pointless, re-recording on the physical copies instead. Now the old episodes of the show are being searched for across the Globe, I believe some were even found at some man's home in Brazil. Backups and archiving stuff is essential.
  • nicbou 6y ago
    On the other hand, Google Photos doesn't offer any way to back up your photos to a computer you control anymore. Google Takeout is the only option.
• holler 6y ago
  probably just shrug and move on with life? same thing as when I deleted my facebook account.
• lower 6y ago
  Open a new one, it's empty anyway. I only have it so that Android can track me.
• jotm 6y ago
  Their account recovery (which only needs answers to one or two of their questions, not all) seems to be used for account highjacking. I lost one that way, and searching around I found many people with a similar story. If they just stuck to requiring a very strong password and not letting anyone in without it, no exceptions, no ifs, no buts, I would still have that account. Fortunately it was an old account I wasn't using anymore. Just use one Google account per Google service, it's the safest way haha.
  • vicek22 6y ago
    Google has an opt-in solution similar to what you describe - Advanced Protection Program - https://landing.google.com/advancedprotection/ https://landing.google.com/advancedprotection/ The drawback is that they only allow you to use "safe" (read Google made) apps.
    • input_sh 6y ago
      There's some third-party apps that can be used now. Apple Mail, Calendar, and Contacts, Firefox and Thunderbird. Wasn't the case at the beginning, when you couldn't open your email in anything but Chrome on Desktop and Gmail app on a phone.
• mxschumacher 6y ago
  The problem this article touches on is huge, because everybody who has a computer is affected and almost nobody takes the necessary precautions. Especially non-technical computer users can easily lose years worth of important data. I've tried to set up contingency plans for the cases that I lose access to my: - phone (which contains Google Authenticator with plenty of important logins; unfortunately some of my 2FA is still based on SMS) - my laptop - my Yubikey - my wallet (with ids and a credit card) due to theft, damage (house burns down) or simply loss. Another under-appreciated risk: losing my memory (my master passwords are only in my mind - what happens if suffer a head injury and forget?) Redundancy is one countermeasure: Have more than one bank account + stock portfolio, more than one credit card (servers might go down if a credit card is blocked) and physical devices (phone, laptop) in store to stay operational in case of an emergency. Full machine backups + regular uploads "to the cloud" for raw data; occasional transfers to (multiple) external hard drives. I don't think there is a way around a safe physical space with printed backup codes on it. Ideally not in the same house - maybe with a bank? A list of instructions for numbers to call for account recovery or blocking. Which information will I have to provide? In a similar vein: what happens to my data after I die? How would my (non-technical) family be able to access my pictures and writings? A digital inheritance would be prevented in my security set if I don't prepare. This space is fascinating to explore, the zeros and ones people have stored on their devices are incredibly valuable to them and this treasure is poorly protected. Generally speaking: No backups, weak passwords, outdated software, old hard drives ... risks abound Google surely has very capable security people, but right now my account there is the central vector of attack, most of my passwords can be reset through my email, a huge portion of my communication runs through Gmail, Whatsapp is backed up to my Drive, most of my pictures are on Google. It's probably a good idea to disentangle the situation a bit to be prepared for the case that Google's fortress gets breached one day. Without compromising your security - I'd love to know how others approach their personal IT security challenges?
  • MattGaiser 6y ago
    Digital inheritance would make for a fascinating SaaS company if anyone could figure out the solutions to this.
• brnt 6y ago
  Not much, since I have successfully degoogled myself. Even deleted my mail address created with an invite back in 2004. The only use I occasionally get out of it is a shared document with somebody.
  • adamhearn 6y ago
    What's the point of removing old addresses? I mean I'm all for privacy, but forward all your old accounts to one funnel account and ensure you never lose that data.
    • jbverschoor 6y ago
      Not keeeping your account is a security hazard. If someone else would be able to use it, he now has access to some password resets. Or just call a support agent to restore the old email address. Same with getting a new phone number
      • cbzbc 6y ago
        If an account is deleted can an account with the sane name be created afterwards ? Because in some ways that would be worse.
        • input_sh 6y ago
          Not on Gmail, but there certainly are email providers that allow a username to be recycled after a certain period of time. Notable example is Yahoo, which recycles usernames that haven't been active for a year: https://yahoo.tumblr.com/post/52805929240/yournameyahoocom-can-be-yours https://yahoo.tumblr.com/post/52805929240/yournameyahoocom-c...
    • brnt 6y ago
      Google does not allow anyone else to register the name ever again, so there's no risk of identity theft. The main reason is to remove cruft I don't need or use.
• johnchristopher 6y ago
  > One of my other Google accounts actually have been inactive for so long that Google doesn’t trust me when I enter the password and there’s no way to recover. This is problematic if a system relies on your using it enough to be a proof of authentication.
• rcMgD2BwE72F 6y ago
  Do you guys all only use iOS? AFAIK, 99% of non-Chinese mobile users are required to have an active Google account simply to use their smartphone. One simply cannot not have a Google account when on Android.
  • gambiting 6y ago
    What do you mean? Of course you can use an android phone without a Google account.
    • blahedo 6y ago
      Serious question: how? I had been a google avoider for years already when I upgraded to a smartphone, and a mandatory part of the setup was creating an @gmail for it, that I couldn't steer around or find an alternative to. I only use that account to "forward stuff to my phone" but I did still need to create it, afaik.
      • Bnshsysjab 6y ago
        You can skip the step, or sign out. I think this loses access to the App Store though.
      • iforgotpassword 6y ago
        At least a while ago you could skip setting up an account. But that means you need to use an alternate app store. Or you get a device that is supported by lineage. Then you're even freed from all the Google related services that would otherwise still run in the background and do who knows what. You'd still need an alternate way of getting apps, and even if you sideload them, some might not work since they rely on Google play services. Or you get a Chinese phone, since Google is banned there they all have alternate app stores, plus a crap load of shovelware that spams your notifications with ads and you share all your personal data with a different government agency than you would with the Google variant.
      • remir 6y ago
        I think you can create an account without using Gmail as the email. For example, you could create a Google Account with joe.smith@outlook.com if you wanted to. At least, that was possible some years ago.
• justinclift 6y ago
  > Tip 1: Store your backup keys in your password manager so if you don’t have your phone on you, you can still log in. Tip 1b: Make sure your password manager isn't using your Google account for authentication. :)
  • chapium 6y ago
    Google can at any time decide to require you to provide additional authentication. What year and month did you create your account? What previous addresses have you logged with google. There are about a dozen prompts to prove yourself to them. Finally, spinning busy icon and... red text says you are denied. You are properly screwed. (My experience a few years ago)
• jknz 6y ago
  A funny one: I am locked out of a former Gmail that forwards every email to my currently active address. This "forward everything" is not throughout IMAP/Pop but some Gmail feature. One day I couldn't login anymore to the old account (maybe I typed the wrong password 3 times or maybe it was deemed inactive because I would never login?) I try the recovery process once in a while with everything (code by SMS, code by recovery email, etc). Never works. But I still receive every email sent to that account through the "forward everything" setup from XX years ago.
  • swiley 6y ago
    The same thing happened to me, I happened to notice and set up the forwarding the day I lost access to the account. I feel pretty lucky for that, it made leaving much easier.
    • dannyw 6y ago
      I wouldn't be surprised if forwarding is a "This account is compromised" indicator and is unintentionally short circuiting and causing accounts to be locked out.
      • Can_Not 6y ago
        That makes sense in my scenario... im in this scenario, but if true, that just means the owner loses the account and the alleged infiltrator(s) keep the forwarding.
  • iforgotpassword 6y ago
    Thanks for that anecdote. I was planning on using the lockdown home office situation to finally buy some domain and set up my own email server. I wasn't sure whether I should set up forwarding on my Gmail account or have the server fetch mail from it regularly. Was leaning towards the second option but I think now it's settled which option to choose. Edit: Ok there's one more stupid scenario. Let's assume I do lose access to the Gmail account but forwarding still works. Now I'm in an accident and stay at a hospital and totally forget to pay the renewal fee for my domain. Boom, some domain squatter gets all my mails. Actually, that would even apply without Gmail in the mix. Sure I'd set up automatic payment for renewal but still, can I be a little paranoid here? ;-)
• unixhero 6y ago
  What if Google locks you out?
• swiley 6y ago
  This happened to me. I managed to log in to my childhood Email account (or rather, have it recreated since my dad owned the domain) and open the link from a password recovery email and google still refused to let me in even though I had been logged in on the same computer just minutes ago. So because their authentication used some stupid heuristic combined with the “no reusing old passwords” thing I was forcibly deplatformed. I’m not making another account, I already wasn’t happy with google and that was enough to make me give them up.
  • k4lle 6y ago
    What do you use now?
    • ZWoz 6y ago
      You can self-host. Don't use cheap VPS providers, spammers like cheap VPS too. I can't give US specific advice, but in EU business Internet connection with static IP is good enough. If your finances allow, reputable colocation provider is good way to go. Now you can make your own little digital home; file storage, mail, homepage and so on. That is worked for me over 15 years, over 5 ISP-s. Additional bonus: instead well known "+" trick in gmail address you can make real throwaway addresses.
      • lqet 6y ago
        +1 for self-hosting. Doing that for nearly 10 years now, by far the most difficult part is setting up a mail server, but after that you can put on your resume that you know how to configure Postfix (which I am quite certain is one of the most difficult Linux server applications to configure). Backups, webmail, file storage, calendar etc. are quite easy to set up.
        • ZWoz 6y ago
          Postfix has flexible configuration system with many knobs. I would say though, that official documentation is nice and detailed. Last time I checked Debian defaults looked pretty good, so you don't need fiddle too much to get reasonably useful and secure setup.
• aloer 6y ago
  I wonder if we will eventually have laws regarding the most essential online services and Service guarantees in the same way we eventually got gdpr Right now I can think of email and password managers, although email could be further split into the mailing service and the mailing address If your bank collapses your money is insured to an amount of X. If your password manager or mailing service collapses you are relying on their goodwill to announce early. I don’t know but is there a legal basis to inherit email addresses? I doubt it except if you also own the domain I would also appreciate some kind of officially vetted recommendation for what to do to keep risk low. Something easy to read that can be forwarded to friends and Family. Internet Service Access has become such an important part of the economy and yet we rely on blogs or the occasional newspaper article telling us what to do. One day something big might break and it will hurt the unprepared
• thejackgoode 6y ago
  Last time one of these topics popped up, I got myself a protonmail account. I guess this time I'll start actually using it.
• Bnshsysjab 6y ago
  To derail, I want to know what to do if google marks emails from my mail server as spam. I honestly cannot figure out how to get them to not do that and I’ve sent a total of 20 emails from my otherwise virgin domain.
  • mxschumacher 6y ago
    are the addresses whitelisted within gmail?
  • swiley 6y ago
    For a while dmark/SPF fixed it for me but they started doing it earlier this year. I don’t care anymore, I’m done with google. Most large companies don’t use Gmail so it’s not really a problem.
    • oarsinsync 6y ago
      The number of large companies (or organisations generally) that outsource to GSuite and O365 is remarkably high. Just because it’s not @gmail doesn’t mean they’re not using Google. Just because the MX records for the domain don’t directly point to google doesn’t mean they’re not using google. Check the headers for mail received to determine who they use for outbound mail. It’s usually (but not always) the same as the inbound path.
  • emilburzo 6y ago
    You can go to Gmail, open the email from your mail server, click on the three dots menu, "Show Original". There you can find some hints, e.g.: SPF: PASS DKIM: PASS DMARC: PASS If any of those are not in 'PASS', you need to fix it and retry. Yes, setting all of these up is not trivial, but it's also not the monster people usually claim it is and I think we should all do our part that this knowledge doesn't appear so unobtainable, as we're already centralized more of the internet than we should have.
  • eythian 6y ago
    For me it was: * make sure that SPF is set on my DNS * make sure that all my IP addresses (including IPv6) have correct reverse lookups * enable opportunistic TLS support on postfix ("smtp_tls_security_level=may") That last one made the difference for me, but I'd done the previous steps already so it could well require all of them.
• sahoo 6y ago
  I have moved to enterprise email. As long as I can prove the ownership of my domain I believe Google will try to restore my access as a paying customer.
  • oarsinsync 6y ago
    Unfortunately, there are stories on this very forum of organisations having their entire GSuite accounts locked because of a user committing a TOS violation on their personal account. Google proceeded to lock all linked accounts too. Including the entire org (the users employer).
• withinboredom 6y ago
  When I lived and traveled on a boat, I'd often be within wifi range but have no cell service. This was back when SMS 2fa was the only option. It was really annoying to be logged out of Google. These days, I doubt it would be as big of an issue to lack cell phone service, for me anyway. I can imagine lots of scenarios where cell service would stop working, and imagining those people effectively locked out of their account until the towers could be rebuilt or repaired makes me sad for them.
  • swiley 6y ago
    I’d love to hear more about the boat, living like that is a personal dream of mine. I know I’m romanticizing it but that’s they way dreams work I guess.
    • xfitm3 6y ago
      Plenty of youtubers living on sailboats - have a look. It's really nice to watch.
• jimnotgym 6y ago
  I would lose my YouTube history. That's all and it's by design
• cannedslime 6y ago
  I would stop using google products...
• dabeeeenster 6y ago
  Tip 1: Store your backup keys in your password manager so if you don’t have your phone on you, you can still log in. Then its not 2 factor, is it?
• sfgweilr4f 6y ago
  Let's go a bit more general. I operate on the realization that google will one day arbitrarily destroy my gmail account for absolutely no reason. At any time. Because. Due to reasons. Those reasons which include the knowledge I will likely never have anything clearly explained. Reasons I cannot appeal. At all. This is what free gmail means to me. Same goes for youtube. Especially youtube. Videos can be deleted for no reason. Better keep copies. Famous people have lost content on google and youtube. Blocked emails. Lost videos. etc etc. I'm a nobody. If famous, "important" people have their accounts "accidentally" deleted, what hope do I have? None whatsoever. I have no idea what google would be like for paid accounts of my own but I was working with a company that did and the support wasn't terribly helpful during a email migration so I'm unimpressed. At least they responded to my emails after a few days.
  • lqet 6y ago
    > This is what free gmail means to me. Same goes for youtube I would add (free) Github to that list.
    • arkitaip 6y ago
      Only Github has a MUCH better track record than Google on these matters.
      • PopeDotNinja 6y ago
        Unless you live in a place like Iran or Crimea.
        • toomuchtodo 6y ago
          Most of us don’t.
          • PopeDotNinja 6y ago
            My point is that it sucks to discriminate against people just based on where they live. One day you're in Sevastopol working remotely for some company that uses GitHub. The next day some politicians decided your in a "bad" place and your permanently banned. It sucks, and hopefully it won't happen to you or me, but it totally could.
• renaudg 6y ago
  Google has an interesting "inactive account manager" feature, which is basically a dead man's switch : https://myaccount.google.com/inactive https://myaccount.google.com/inactive Unfortunately, it's not available for GSuite accounts. I suppose the rationale is that organizations don't have the same requirements as individuals, but that's not the only use case for GSuite : any individual (like me) who set up legacy GSuite to use GMail with a custom domain is out of luck.
• apexalpha 6y ago
  In 2016 I was in the middle of China when my phone got stolen. Obviously I had backup codes saved in a text file so I was good. Then my moment of dread came: the codes didn't work. I still don't know why but from that moment on the laptop I brought with me that had Google logged in was my only gateway to my personal info. I mailed account support and after explaining the situation and providing proof they reset my 2FA, after which I could set it up again on my new phone. Even though Google support was pretty quick and helped me out (in my own language, mailing from China) I have since moved to GMail with my own domain for more control, have printed out backup codes that I test every 3 months, have multiple phones with Google logged in for 2FA and periodically use the GDPR method to download stuff Google has on me, just to be safe. It was an eye opener how vulnerable I was using Google's "one account to rule them all".
• faebi 6y ago
  I assume all ways of recovery by google failed. I would go the physical route. Take a megaphone, a big sign and go to one of the google offices in Zürich. First stand there and then slowly ramp up to attract more attention. At one point one googler must be willing to help or must be annoyed enough by me. It sounds extreme but it is my Plan B. My personal data includes all my pictures which are extremly valueable to me. I do pay for many google services including Google Drive and I expect them to support me.
  • dvcrn 6y ago
    Not working at google but we are frequently getting security warnings to not leave the office building with swag that shows our company name because some customers weren’t happy with cs and stand angrily in front of our office ready to confront anyone. Don’t do this. It won’t do anything good and I also doubt some random googler has the privileges to restore your account. There are likely policies in place similar to how I am not allowed (or able) to touch our customers accounts
    • jdm2212 6y ago
      Random Googler can't restore your account, but can file a ticket that might actually get looked at. Source: firsthand experience. I had problems with Google Fi when it was pretty new. I tried to work through the issue with their normal support, unsuccessfully. I worked at Google back then, and eventually point filed a ticket with (or maybe emailed? I don't remember) the Project Fi team. Lo and behold, my issue got resolved almost immediately.
• znpy 6y ago
  For me it would be an annoyance for sure, but I've been not-using Google stuff long enough that I wouldn't really care. This is how I did that: 1. I self-host my email and most of my emails are exchanged via my self-hosted domain. 2. I use nextcloud for cloud storage with automatic upload of pictures, videos and call recordings from my phone. 3. I use ZFS for snapshotting and replication. ------ Regarding my google account... I took the habit of taking notes of my previous password when I change it with a new one. I also took note of my backup codes. ------ Regarding self-hosting email... It's surprisingly low-maintenance. My current mailserver was set up in 2014 and I've touched very little since then (considering it's been on for six years). It does require some learning in the beginning, but a) email is so old that's very, very, very well documented and b) time spent learning is never wasted. Nextcloud is just awesome. It does have its quirks and an SSD would definitely help, but I've been running it off a cheap machine (~115€ dell optiplex 7010, 2nd gen i5, 8gb ram, 250gb HDD system disk + 2TB HDD data disk) and only had occasional problems (don't try and push too much stuff at the same time or postgress will basically kill itself if it can't keep up -- upload files to the data folder instead and let nextcloud rescan such folder). ZFS is the real game changer. Hourly snapshots are extremely fast and cheap and make it easy to sync your precious data to another location (in case something goes wrong). ------ Sometimes I stop and think about how exploitative and predatory modern internet services providers are. Most TOSes clearly state that they can terminate your service for any reason. Which is generally understandable but also mean that all of your data could be gone so fast... The cloud isn't really the safest thing to put your stuff into.
  • superkuh 6y ago
    > 1. I self-host my email and most of my emails are exchanged via my self-hosted domain. >Regarding self-hosting email... It's surprisingly low-maintenance. My current mailserver was set up in 2014 and I've touched very little since then (considering it's been on for six years). What will you do when you're email server's OS goes out of support? (or if VPS, they upgrade from ovz6 to 7, or worse) Or if you can upgrade but the packages for your original install are slightly changed or not available on the new version? How did you store the email? Virtual users on disk with dovecot or the like? How will you port to a new OS environment when required? It's isn't trivial. I'm in the same position having set up my personal mailserver in 2013 with very little maintenance since. But now the bill has come due with the need to upgrade OSes.
• nor-and-or-not 6y ago
  I lost mine a few years ago, since then Google is an absolute no go for me. Had it for a few years back then and never did anything bad or oblique with it, just used it as my secondary email account and also for deploying a small, harmless Chrome extension to the Chrome store. So one day my wife bought a tablet and also registered a mandatory account. 1-2 days later my and her Google account was terminated. I mailed support and they told me they couldn't tell me the reason for terminating both accounts. No kidding. Tablet suddenly obsolete. All my emails gone. Since then Google is a big red flag for me. Addendum to clarify: They said they won't tell me the reason for terminating my account. I'm sure they could have told me if they wanted to.
  • t0astbread 6y ago
    What tablet mandates a Google account? I thought you could always go without, even on stock Android.
    • nor-and-or-not 6y ago
      Those were cheap tablets from Aldi / Medion one could buy in Germany back then and they required a mandatory Google account to use them. Can't remember their name; they cost about 150 Euros back then.
      • nolok 6y ago
        Then it was covered by the warranty so you could get your money back, at least.
        • nor-and-or-not 6y ago
          Yes, sure - but this wasn't my main issue. I found it unapologetic to get my account, which I then have used for years, cancelled without any explanation or sign of wrongdoing. But what should I say. I didn't pay for it so it was well within Googles rights and discretion. At least this made me aware that such behaviour exists.
    • 6y ago
• PakG1 6y ago
  Contemplating this question is what caused me to switch to Fastmail. Next step would be operating my own mail server, but I would be too lazy to maintain it, keep it patched, up-to-date LTS OS, etc. Easier to outsource to a company that actually has customer service and would care about losing the revenue I bring as a customer if they did me wrong. The custom domain is great for reducing spam too, though I suppose you can get that with Google Docs.
• darrmit 6y ago
  I do a few things to try to mitigate this definite risk: * utilize a known unique password + non-SMS based MFA and document the password and backup codes in my password manager * pay for G Suite instead of free. I have been through “lost credential” scenarios with other Google customers and, though painful, you can regain access via proof of domain ownership perhaps most importantly, I use my own domain * I sync my photos with both iCloud and Google * my files in Google Drive are backed up locally There’s no way I’d rely on a free account or domain with anyone at this point for the majority of my digital life. There’s just too much pain involved with losing it and it’s too easy to prevent.
• Markoff 6y ago
  not much, since I don't use Google account at all but if I lost my Outlook account which I use for exchange calendar, contacts and email sync, calendar and contacts would be no problem since they are at any time offline in phone, so just need to be backed up and moved elsewhere, email would be bigger issue, I would need to notify my client company about using my new address and then somehow try to change email address and many services I used this email
• senior-intern 6y ago
  purelymail.com is good and cheap solution for gmail. I used 2 months already and its very good.
• bsenftner 6y ago
  Why do people trust anything with untrustworthy organizations? Sure I have a google account. Is anything I value maintained there? Absolutely not. They are untrustworthy, and have demonstrated as such numerous times. Mom didn't raise no fool.
• IAmGraydon 6y ago
  I would lose access to analytics - the only Google service I use. I don’t use chrome, I don’t “sign in with Google” on any sites, I’ve never used Gmail, and I’ve been generally very cautious about anything they have their hands in.
• dkersten 6y ago
  Nothing. I only use it for YouTube, so all I would lose is my video subscriptions, but I mainly watch a small handful of channels so no big deal.
• kungato 6y ago
  Imagine backing up those 50-100 gigabites of actually essential data you have and using google normally. They even allow you to backup your email via outlook or whatever and just download your photos and drive. You don't really need RAW images of your birthday from 15 years ago. Google's Photos compression seems perfect to me for all "memories" photos
• brenden2 6y ago
  I'm glad I made the choice to migrate off of Google's products about a year ago. Having control of your own domain and identity is super important in a world where one company can effectively delete you from the internet when they want and there's no legal recourse.
  • miked85 6y ago
    Same. I deleted my google account about a year ago as well and haven't missed it at all.
• justsomedude11 6y ago
  Just out of curiosity, does anyone have similar experience or have seen reports from people being banned from outlook.com in a similar fashion (random bans for no reason)?
• g8oz 6y ago
  I recommend multiple Google accounts. One per service or device.
  • detaro 6y ago
    Google is known to trace and connect those and applying bans to all of them, so this isn't necessarily helping.
    • lrem 6y ago
      Helps against accidental lockouts, I imagine.
    • g8oz 6y ago
      This my method: one account for the phone, one for Google Drive/Google Docs only used in a special purpose Firefox container. Email and calendar are with Outlook.com - they are good enough, work fine with Android, and are worth the reduction of entanglement with Google in my life.
  • MrPatan 6y ago
    Isn't that in itself against the TOS?
    • g8oz 6y ago
      This link says its permitted: https://support.google.com/accounts/thread/16766513?hl=en https://support.google.com/accounts/thread/16766513?hl=en
• acomjean 6y ago
  I have a domain name that I can’t get too through google. I don’t use it but would like to start again. The registrar is go daddy and i tried to access it through them the told me to go through google. It’s part of their g-suite now which I can’t seem to access, since I have an individual account. The help pages are Ridiculously obtuse. We use google maps for a non profit and they require a credit card. It’s was near impossible to figure out where to update. (Why not send a link in the email to where I needed to go?) They really could Be so much more profitable If they could get there ui ducks in a row.
  • notechback 6y ago
    But if your domain is through GoDaddy you can just change the DNS info there and it won't point to Google anymore.
    • acomjean 6y ago
      I registered it through google and it ended up "administered by" go daddy which I didn't realize when I signed up. I can't access it through goDaddy directly. I was hoping to move it to where I register my other domains....
• kunkurus 6y ago
  Mail-in-a-Box https://mailinabox.email/ https://mailinabox.email/
• poidos 6y ago
  Well, nothing... google-free. :)
• freeflight 6y ago
  What troubles me about this is how casually we've moved everything to e-mail, on the assumption that everybody can get a "free" e-mail account, even tho the account isn't actually "free" and can be taken away from you without you doing much of anything wrong. Very similar to how a phone-sim has kinda become the de-facto digital ID of most people. In the long term, where does that leave people who can't afford a mobile phone/a paid e-mail account? This is already somewhat of an issue with certain digital services that won't accept e-mail accounts from free providers that are too abused for spam. What happens to the people who can't afford a paid e-mail account when billing and so many other services are moving to digital heavily depending on the availability of e-mail? In contrast to that, I don't have to pay a monthly fee to have a physical mailbox at my door, but that won't get me far with most digital services.
  • judge2020 6y ago
    I'd like to think the reason developers/companies require you have an email address is simply because the availability of free email has been a thing for 20 years. If that changes sometime in the future, I'm sure companies will rethink their sign-up flows to allow other forms of [free] communication to be used. > What happens to the people who can't afford a paid e-mail account when billing and so many other services are moving to digital heavily depending on the availability of e-mail? Unless things change a lot, any company that wants the general public's business will accept free email accounts. The same goes for why every company already requires an email address at all - their target market is anyone with internet (excludes 10% +-1% [0] of the United States) that can create an account with Apple, Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft. 0: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/22/some-americans-dont-use-the-internet-who-are-they/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/22/some-americ...
  • t0astbread 6y ago
    This is also very problematic for people who disagree with the terms of free email providers (like you already mentioned ""free" isn't really free"). Of course, if one is in financial trouble, then they probably have larger problems but it's still worrying to me how privacy is becoming a luxury good instead of the default. It should be seen as a "hidden cost" to any digital service that requires an email address (either monetary for a trustworthy enough email account or in the form of privacy). As an aside, this sort of forcing people into using digital services with terms they don't agree with has become widespread during the pandemic and it kinda makes me angry how no one is thinking about any of this.
• syshum 6y ago
  I have a grandfathered free Google apps for Domains account that is use for all my google things, if I lose it then i move my custom domain to another provider and move on with my life All data on Google is backed up, and can easily be transitioned to another provider I learned long ago to avoid vendor lockin, I go to great pains to ensure that in all aspects of my life
• saadalem 6y ago
  Google wave made us happy, it was all-in-one : wiki, email, chat, social media, closed environnement that can't be spammed, stuff of dreams. Does anyone have an idea why they stopped developing it ?
• fxtentacle 6y ago
  Use a proper client like Thunderbird with IMAP. You now have a full email backup on each of your devices :)
• fosco 6y ago
  related...I had an old google account stolen from me a few weeks ago. this happened on April 8th while I was sleeping (I received recovery emails etc -- everything was changed by the time I woke up) this old account had an auto-forward for all emails to another email so for the first week whomever stole it was not aware everything was copied to my other account. I tried going through googles account recovery and unfortunately it appears that I will not be receiving this account back, I am sad because I did not copy all email locally and have lost some very old emails -- trhis account was made when gmail was still beta with an actual 'invite'. what is surprising is how obviously it is fraud based on the emails I received over the next few days the owner had different names for a handful of people i.e. 'Hi Chinh' or 'hello Hau' (many others as well) I kept these because apparently google is investigating and I've been told to be patient due to covid-19 delays but I suspect I got lost in the pile of other work. it is not a big deal in the long run just makes me sad that clearly I did not do enough to protect this account and there is not a human on my behalf looking... any person looking at this (if google admins can) would come to the very quick conclusion it is clear that it was stolen.
• JamesG124 6y ago
  Probably become a sex worker :..)
• TravisHeeter 6y ago
  What you should really worry about is leaving your phone in an Uber. I did it once, and had no way of contacting Uber or the driver. I tried logging into Uber from a computer, but they sent a code to my phone - which of course I didn't have. The only thing that saved me - after trying to talk to someone at Uber for 4 hours - was the driver found my phone and brought it back to me after his shift ended. I had resigned to buying a new phone, I thought it'd be gone forever.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• dudus 6y ago
  I'd create a new one right away. And be more mindful of backups and following a ToS. Sure it's popular to hate on Google here. But the value they provide undeniable
• drivebycomment 6y ago
  This is a relevant issue but I haven't seen this discuss here so: If you want to minimize or practically eliminate the Google account lock-out risk and also eliminate any hijacking risks, register multiple hardware security keys (FIDO keys), remove all phone-based 2nd factor or backup, and make sure your password is something you won't forget (it doesn't have to be very strong - as long as it's unique), and register for Google's Advanced Protection. Because there is no known attack against hardware security keys, there has been no broad attack - which means heuristic-based defense is not necessary. The heuristic based defense is a necessary evil - it's the source of false positive lockouts, but necessary since otherwise credential stuffing attacks can't be controlled / reduced. You want at least two security keys, preferably 3 (one with your primary device like laptop, one personally with you e.g. in your key ring, and one stored at home, preferably in a fire-proof safe - alternatively you can leave your security key at work if you're ok with that exposure). You really want redundancy - as much as you fear lock-out, you should never lose access to at least one of your security keys. If any of the security keys get stolen, you can immediately de-register and get a new one to replace it. You want to get rid of SMS or phone-based 2nd factor, since phone hijacking is a realistic threat. You also don't want OTP as it's phishable, and is more difficult to maintain high availability (you lose one device you registered as OTP and you're doomed).
  • pragmatic 6y ago
    Do you have sources for this info? Very interesting.
• aszantu 6y ago
  make another one?
• FpUser 6y ago
  Do not care. Anything vital I host myself on premises and on rented standby servers
• OrgNet 6y ago
  I would pay for a software that could update my email address on all/most web services...
• ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  When I set up my corporation, a couple of years ago, I set up a Google account for it. For some reason, it won't let me in. I am pretty sure that I have the correct password (I use a very well-known wallet app), but it's entirely possible that I borked the process. Google won't help me to unlock it. I have to use a gmail account (the one I set up) to get reminder links, and I can't figure out why it isn't honoring my secondary email account (my corporate email, which works fine). It really isn't a big deal (to me). It prevents someone else from registering as my company. It does mean that I won't be doing any corporate business with Google, but that's fine. I don't write the kind of software that uses their services.
• nanidin 6y ago
  I lost my Google account about 12 years ago, right in the middle of college. Instant loss of all email, calendar, and todo items. Zero recourse. I never got closure on why, but I suspect it’s because I used my invitation links to create more accounts for myself. What did I do? Tried to get an explanation, then tried to appeal, then set up my own mail server and have self hosted my own email ever since.
• gpvos 6y ago
  Maybe create a new one. I have several Google accounts, all for different purposes, but I don't use any of them much, and not for anything that is really important. Google can probably all trace them back to me if they want, but I like to separate the identities. I don't check the email for any of them. My previous job had all its accounts via Google. It felt icky.
• vcryan 6y ago
  Finally move off of Google products
• 4weekoldroses 6y ago
  While we're on it, what's the best way to back up all my google photos? I'm on a paid plan, but nonetheless, that has some important memories I'd like redundancy on.
  • jazzyjackson 6y ago
    I decided it was worth it to pay adobe $10/month for a terabyte of storage. I really like the integration with Lightroom, where I can give it a budget of how many gigabytes its allowed to use locally and it handles swapping out high resolution for 'ok' resolution so my whole collection fits on my laptop. I also appreciate that they gave me a checkbox for "please don't use my family photos to train your algorithms" so I can opt out, Google does not give you the option, all your photos are theirs to train with.
  • mceachen 6y ago
    Get an external hard drive or NAS (Synology makes well-supported devices), go to takeout.google.com, request an archive of your photos, wait a couple days, and then download the archive. Note that the takeout archive will most likely not contain your original images. Google photos deletes, and in some cases rewrites, the metadata in your files. It's much better to back up your photos and videos directly from your devices. I use Resilio Sync or SyncThing to do this automatically, and then use PhotoStructure to manage and view my photo and video library on my own hardware.
• etaioinshrdlu 6y ago
  The funny thing about giant tech companies and your personal data is they do their best to convince you they are a great place to store your intimate details and secrets. They can be trusted. But on the flip side, these companies are incredibly paranoid and secretive with their own data. They all run their own mail internally and do not (in general) store sensitive data on each other's clouds. I think this is super important for companies like, for example, Facebook and Uber, to maintain utter secrecy of their internal data, because they know they have a lot to hide. Anyways, the vibe is "Trust us, but we won't trust you". Yuck.
  • joshuamorton 6y ago
    I'm not sure what your point is. Most big companies use gsuite or Ms office suite, or don't because they consider Google or Ms a competitor and don't want to pay them money. There's very few big companies that are concerned about MS or Google stealing their data. That's a concern held mostly by random hackernews commenters.
  • Drdrdrq 6y ago
    Good point, though it's probably more "Trust us, but we don't trust others like us". Still very telling.
  • fibers 6y ago
    Ok but playing devil's advocate, do you think this is a result of clouds inevitably leading to vendor lock in?
• at_a_remove 6y ago
  Personally? I would have to make a new one if you wanted to look at some age-rated YouTube videos. That's all. I never did go near the Google ecosystem, having had a taste of them early only for support on a real, "we paid for it" product.
• andrelgomes 6y ago
  The ripples are bigger than just losing your Google account, but all the third party services you use that use Google authentication. That convenience just locked you out of X amount of accounts - I recorded I used 15+ accounts before switching out. That is why I advise my coworkers and myself to always sign up with an email and password stored in a password manager.
• bad_user 6y ago
  Nothing would happen to me. My personal email is not on Gmail. My documents are not in Google Docs, my data is not in Google Drive. I upload my videos elsewhere. My browser history isn't in Chrome, etc. While I understand the individual value of some of these services, personally I don't understand how people can put all of their eggs in one basket. If you're afraid of Google banning you for no reason, and you should be, move to alternatives and I don't mean moving to another monopoly that can as easily disallow access to all of your data and online persona. And make backups, for sure, but I don't think backups are sufficient, because it's costly and recovery from backups often fails, being a last resort hail marry solution.
• cosmojg 6y ago
  I would make a new one and carry on as if nothing ever happened. I have my email at my own domain for which I pay about $10/year, my phone runs LineageOS, and I back up all my important data between my various devices with Syncthing. I try my best to avoid giving up too much control over my life, especially when it's as easy as purchasing a domain, installing an operating system, or setting up an application. Altogether, these actions took about an hour or two to complete, and they'll likely save me so much more in the long run. If I can do it, you can too!
• astrostl 6y ago
  Shrug and say, "well I guess YouTube isn't getting my money any more." I'm exited on all other Google services.
• bstar77 6y ago
  This is why I point my gmail account to my own domain. If google does pull this, at least I'm still in control of my address which is my top concern.
• bit_logic 6y ago
  It seems there's a simple solution for this, paid customer support. Why doesn't Google have an option where someone can pay $50 (or some other set amount) to get assistance? This would immediately filter it to only legitimate and serious cases.
• INTPenis 6y ago
  In my case the most important thing would be to backup all my photos. But also every single account I have is registered to my gmail.com address. I could probably still login and change the e-mail. Luckily I have AndOTP which supports backing up your OTP keys. I have over 22 keys atm.
• Tade0 6y ago
  A while ago I switched to creating an email account tied to my domain for every new service. Of course now I need to not lose control of the domain, but that's something that can be solved with a calendar app or... a calendar. I think this is a reliable approach, because if I ever lose control over the hosting service account, I can prove my identity through invoices that were generated along the way.
  • celeritascelery 6y ago
    > if I ever lose control over the hosting service account, I can prove my identity through invoices that were generated along the way. Is this a common approach if you loose access to your hosting?
    • Tade0 6y ago
      I wouldn't know as I never lost it, but this is one way I heard of - a proven history of paying for the service.
• pmontra 6y ago
  If I lose my account I open another one and tell my customers to revoke every permission to the old account and grant them to the new one. I don't keep anything valuable in Google because I don't trust them: I'm not paying so I'm not a customer and I'm disposable, then there is too much automation going on and I could be banned for reasons no human being will ever understand. I wonder what happens with my Android devices. Reset to factory settings or is it possible to switch accounts? And what if they ban my phone number, is that even possible?
• joshlittle 6y ago
  For me, iCloud would be worse. While I’d be sad to lose my Google Voice number in use since 2010; I’ve been using my iCloud account since the day it was launched as iTools. I have had my @mac.com email for 20 years.
• BadThink6655321 6y ago
  Not a darn thing. Don’t like them, don’t need them, don’t want to need them. I understand this (luxury) might not apply to everyone.
• vz8 6y ago
  Late to this conversation, but I (and many co-workers) use a number of SAAS tools from Asana to Trello and everything between. Has anyone reading HN developed a process/policy to cover disaster recovery in the event of SAAS (insolvency|malfeasance|ransomware|data center breach|corrupt backups|identity theft|ad nauseum)? Even if there were a one-size-fits-all export automation platform (maybe there is, or there's Zapier ... please weigh in if there's a quality one stop shop), the format you get from most providers (IME) bears little resemblance to the ecosystem you exported it from. You can't get back there from here, so to speak: a csv (or series of csvs) are missing the relationships needed to reconstruct complex data on the platform, assuming you'd risk returning. Thanks for any thoughts.
• erdos4d 6y ago
  I'd switch over to a proper email provider like https://cock.li/ https://cock.li/ I'd even use Tor when I did it. Take that, surveillance state!
• milo_im 6y ago
  Gmvault is a tool for backing up your gmail account and never lose email correspondence: https://github.com/gaubert/gmvault https://github.com/gaubert/gmvault
• zanethomas 6y ago
  I would continue using my protonmail account.
• quijoteuniv 6y ago
  Have (at least) more than 1 account!
• laurentdc 6y ago
  I've been planning to ditch Google for a long time. Besides mail, the only other service I use is Drive. 200 GB, 2.99€/mo. I don't need desktop sync. I only use cloud storage to archive old files that I like to have around but never really access, such as rare CDs or records that I've ripped. Any suggestions for an alternative? Hetzner storage box? Glacier? rsync.net? If only Dropbox had an intermediate tier...
  • koheripbal 6y ago
    Does it have to be cloud based? I have a FreeNAS machine (they sell them pre-configured) that I bought which I use for holding tons of data - including old photos/videos, important documents, Movies/TV shows, and a few VMs for fun.
  • dleslie 6y ago
    I've been using Backblaze and find it intolerably slow.
• Bayart 6y ago
  I moved to a paid email provider two years ago and keep local backups. At this point the only Google service I'd be remiss to lose is my list of Youtube subscribed channels. I never really got into the ecosystem. I've been wanting to try Google Calendar but I could never stick to it.
• lydzb123 6y ago
  It'd be a headache at first for logins and losing things in my Drive, but I would honestly feel a whole lot more freed up without it as I'm not v good at maintaining all my accounts, history, files, etc.
• 0x006A 6y ago
  create a new one
• simonblack 6y ago
  Google -schmoogle. What if you lost your 'XXXXX' account? In my very humble opinion, anything stored on the 'cloud' is lost already. I got burned very early on, back in 2011, with 'cloud storage' while using a DropBox account. I then proceeded to be my own on-line storage server. I use my server (that's already running 24/7 anyway) to serve SSHFS, SSH, SHTML and FTP to myself and just SHTML to anybody else who may chance along. The server is UPS-protected. And I don't have to pay out those everlasting monthly fees to some faceless company who doesn't care at all whether or not they happen to lose my stuff.
• rabboRubble 6y ago
  Use my google takeout backup and live on. No issue for me.
• treebornfrog 6y ago
  I am actively considering switching my main personal email to protonmail with a custom domain. Google has too many of its tentacles in my life.
• troyandabed 6y ago
  To the people who talk about devices becoming bricks: why do you pay more than a small fee if you effectively only rent them? if you "buy" something you are not root on or cannot change the bootloader (and everything) on, you must expect it to stop working from day 1. To me, it would not make sense to pay for that. lack of knowledge doesn't save you, after all.
• hans_castorp 6y ago
  What would I do? Nothing, because I'd lose nothing. I am not storing any data of mine with Google (or Apple or Microsoft).
• mikl 6y ago
  I moved everything important off Google years ago. I figure trusting the world’s largest advertising company with private data was sub-optimal. The cases we’ve seen since, where people get their Google accounts terminated without reason or appeal options, have only made me more adamant in my position of not entrusting Google with anything important. So the only thing I’d lose that would bother me would be my YouTube subscriptions and watch-later list.
• sandgiant 6y ago
  Nothing much. I'd have to find a replacement for Google Maps and YouTube, but I guess I could just create a new account for that. I use ProtonMail and iCloud for email and calendar respectively. DockDuckGo for search, Firefox for rendering web content. I backup everything to multiple locations/services, so I'm not too worried about loosing access to things in general. Guess the most annoying thing to loose access to would be Facebook as I have a few contacts on there that I wouldn't immediately know how else to contact, but I'm sure I'd find a way if I really had to.
  • koheripbal 6y ago
    Any cloud email provider is going to have the same problem.
• Cf1hpOtECK 6y ago
  So, at least for phone numbers, Canada has a Wireless Number Portability policy. Would a similar policy for email addresses be completely unreasonable? I understand that there would be significant technical difficulties, but it would at least prevent folks from getting locked out of their lives because of an arbitrary decision by Google or other large email providers.
• rurban 6y ago
  I would not be able to login to my phones, I guess. And then losing my contacts and calendar entries. Bug most of them are synced to my Mac, so I'm OK. On Linux I'm using evolution for this, but never cared to use it much. Email is not much of a problem. The various email aliases all point to gmail, but this can be changed easily. sync's are done to thunderbird on Linux and Mac email. POP, not IMAP. IMAP alone would be a problem.
• 8bitsrule 6y ago
  I dumped my Google 'account' long ago, when I signed up for Plus and they wouldn't let me back into my (4-year-old) Blogspot blog without verifying my name. What I did then was to block most everything Google (less Youtube) and find working substitutes. It didn't hurt me for long, I routed-around it. After that, I was never hurt by any of their service-shutdowns, and they've earned my scorn in many new ways.
• dkraft 6y ago
  Suicide
• strategarius 6y ago
  Answer is simple - do not trust all your digital life to Google. I would say, trust them as few as possible. Most of the content you created and saved under their account - your documents, spreadsheets, and photos can be accessed, modified and redistributed according to Terms Of Service. Apply common sense and diversification. Use different services for your email, cloud storage, photos and videos. Have a backup of your every service - mirror of your cloud drive, reserve email, locally stored credentials in any offline password manager.
• LinuxBender 6y ago
  I only use my Google login for Youtube. Without it and assuming I could not make another, it just means I can't leave any comments or view anything flagged as mature. I could do without it really. It's just as easy to bookmark the channels I find interesting and very rarely do youtubers respond to my comments.