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Yep, and it was even more aggravating. > have three gmail accounts > primary, name.surname@gmail.com > secondary, name.surname.purchases@gmail.com > tertiar

Yep, and it was even more aggravating. > have three gmail accounts > primary, name.surname@gmail.com > secondary, name.surname.purchases@gmail.com > tertiary, name.surname.work@gmail.com > secondary and tertiary have primary as a recovery address > log in/out once a week in 2nd and 3rd > last August, try to log into name.surname.work > "Password is incorrect" > WTH?! of course it's correct. > try several times, Google blocks me ("temporarily") > next day, try again, no dice. > OK, the hell with this: let's reset the password > "what's the last password you remember?" duh, the last and only password is the one I already gave you, you stupid machine. > "we need additional verification; input the recovery address" Finally! type my main address > mail from Google arrives pronto, code in it > type code in verification field > new mail from Google: "Thank you for verifying your mail address" [my primary one?!] Based on the information provided, we cannot ascertain that [tertiary account] belongs to you" This has been happening since. A few weeks ago, secondary account went down too, yielding the same error OP got. Note: a) I have been using the same IP and the same machine to log into those accounts for many years; there is no other device or location where I've signed in before! b) primary account has multiple (4) Yubikeys associated with it, so it should be clear I'm a real person and not a bot. I'm currently in panic mode: if my main account goes down, it will take a huge part of my life with it, from banks to government stuff.

b112 5y ago
Set up a real email provider, forward your mail from google to them, and transition over. If you want real identity security, reg your own domain, and move it with you.
- __d 5y ago
  This 100%. It's the only way you can move your email between providers. Of course, it just shifts your risk to the domain registrar, so don't use someone too cheap. It's worth paying a decent fee for decent service here.
- fn-mote 5y ago
  > If you want real identity security, reg your own domain, and move it with you. I'm pretty confident that Gmail is more secure than the domain registrar if you're really attacked. At least do your research carefully on this one. Domains do get stolen. As always, consider your own threat model. But if you're a civilian? Wow, just hope you can walk away from the lockout.
  - foxfluff 5y ago
    I am my own domain registrar.
    - BenjiWiebe 5y ago
      And can any random person with a gmail or outlook or yahoo email address successfully email you and get replies back?
      - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
        Having your own domain doesn't mean running the email server yourself. Or are you suggesting that they filter by registrar?
      - jeroenhd 5y ago
        In my experience, the moment someone emails your domain (at least on Gmail) your domain seems to become whitelisted almost instantaneously, even if others receive your email as spam. I don't know about Yahoo, but the problem is usually reaching out first. Generally, deliverability seems quite fine as long as you don't go for the cheapest package deal and implement all the modern protocols (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, etc.). Amazon IP addresses also seem to do quite well because Amazon has its own spam prevention system that's tied to your AWS account. Having said that said, I haven't had a failed delivery in years and I host my email on a cheap VPS. I only started getting deliverability problems when I ignored my mail client's (and server's) warnings before sending a 100MiB email through a mail server that also hosted a TOR relay, which was pretty stupid in hindsight. Mail deliverability isn't quite as bad as people seem to think it is, but if mail delivery to the big four fails, there's almost never a way to troubleshoot it. That's kind of a pain, I suppose.
resueman 5y ago
I had something like this happen becasue I was logging in to some microsoft service, and thought I was supposed to be giving them my microsoft account password but apparently they wanted my gmail password for whatever they were up to. And doing a password reset on this microsoft service actually reset my stupid gmail account. Then once I figured out what happened, google wouldn't let me use an old password to set it back.
amelius 5y ago
Perhaps you're not supposed to have more than 1 gmail account, and the assumptions in their code cannot deal with more than 1 account per user, or worse, they actively try to discourage it.
- the_snooze 5y ago
  Shared accounts are a nightmare too. Google makes it a pain for a team of developers to share a single "test" account completely seperate from their individual accounts.
- supermatou 5y ago
  All of a sudden? I've had those accounts for a very long time - I created them when I got an invitation to test the service (Gmail was in beta and not open to the general public.) The year was 2003, I think.
- jeroenhd 5y ago
  I've been using multiple accounts for years, almost every part of the UI has the ability to switch between accounts. Youtube even still has the old Youtube account available from before the Google+ era, and switching to it is painless. There could be many useful and useless reasons for why accounts get flagged, but using multiple accounts isn't one in my experience.
- AnonC 5y ago
  There’s nothing of that sort. Gmail has long had a feature where you could link your accounts and switch between them too.
- asdff 5y ago
  This would be pretty foolish on their end to discriminate this way, because I'm willing to bet 99% of their enterprise customers employees also have personal gmail accounts.
rattray 5y ago
Is it possible that your secondary/tertiary accounts were victims of account takeover? Did you have 2FA on them?
lucb1e 5y ago
Are you quoting from somewhere or is this bullet points? (I only know this bullet points style from 4chan so not sure if this might be a quote instead.)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
cbsmith 5y ago
Could be some bot is trying to log in to your account, triggering your account being locked down.
jadedtuna 5y ago
I've had exactly the same issue before. The only way I could resolve it was by "confirming" my phone number. I didn't have a phone number connected to that account, but Google helpfully let me confirm it anyways (i.e. it just accepted the phone number as proof of me being me, despite never seeing that phone number before).

b112 5y ago

Set up a real email provider, forward your mail from google to them, and transition over. If you want real identity security, reg your own domain, and move it with you.

__d 5y ago
This 100%. It's the only way you can move your email between providers. Of course, it just shifts your risk to the domain registrar, so don't use someone too cheap. It's worth paying a decent fee for decent service here.
fn-mote 5y ago
> If you want real identity security, reg your own domain, and move it with you. I'm pretty confident that Gmail is more secure than the domain registrar if you're really attacked. At least do your research carefully on this one. Domains do get stolen. As always, consider your own threat model. But if you're a civilian? Wow, just hope you can walk away from the lockout.
- foxfluff 5y ago
  I am my own domain registrar.
  - BenjiWiebe 5y ago
    And can any random person with a gmail or outlook or yahoo email address successfully email you and get replies back?
    - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
      Having your own domain doesn't mean running the email server yourself. Or are you suggesting that they filter by registrar?
    - jeroenhd 5y ago
      In my experience, the moment someone emails your domain (at least on Gmail) your domain seems to become whitelisted almost instantaneously, even if others receive your email as spam. I don't know about Yahoo, but the problem is usually reaching out first. Generally, deliverability seems quite fine as long as you don't go for the cheapest package deal and implement all the modern protocols (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, etc.). Amazon IP addresses also seem to do quite well because Amazon has its own spam prevention system that's tied to your AWS account. Having said that said, I haven't had a failed delivery in years and I host my email on a cheap VPS. I only started getting deliverability problems when I ignored my mail client's (and server's) warnings before sending a 100MiB email through a mail server that also hosted a TOR relay, which was pretty stupid in hindsight. Mail deliverability isn't quite as bad as people seem to think it is, but if mail delivery to the big four fails, there's almost never a way to troubleshoot it. That's kind of a pain, I suppose.

resueman 5y ago

I had something like this happen becasue I was logging in to some microsoft service, and thought I was supposed to be giving them my microsoft account password but apparently they wanted my gmail password for whatever they were up to. And doing a password reset on this microsoft service actually reset my stupid gmail account. Then once I figured out what happened, google wouldn't let me use an old password to set it back.

amelius 5y ago

Perhaps you're not supposed to have more than 1 gmail account, and the assumptions in their code cannot deal with more than 1 account per user, or worse, they actively try to discourage it.

the_snooze 5y ago
Shared accounts are a nightmare too. Google makes it a pain for a team of developers to share a single "test" account completely seperate from their individual accounts.
supermatou 5y ago
All of a sudden? I've had those accounts for a very long time - I created them when I got an invitation to test the service (Gmail was in beta and not open to the general public.) The year was 2003, I think.
jeroenhd 5y ago
I've been using multiple accounts for years, almost every part of the UI has the ability to switch between accounts. Youtube even still has the old Youtube account available from before the Google+ era, and switching to it is painless. There could be many useful and useless reasons for why accounts get flagged, but using multiple accounts isn't one in my experience.
AnonC 5y ago
There’s nothing of that sort. Gmail has long had a feature where you could link your accounts and switch between them too.
asdff 5y ago
This would be pretty foolish on their end to discriminate this way, because I'm willing to bet 99% of their enterprise customers employees also have personal gmail accounts.

rattray 5y ago

Is it possible that your secondary/tertiary accounts were victims of account takeover? Did you have 2FA on them?

lucb1e 5y ago

Are you quoting from somewhere or is this bullet points? (I only know this bullet points style from 4chan so not sure if this might be a quote instead.)

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

cbsmith 5y ago

Could be some bot is trying to log in to your account, triggering your account being locked down.

jadedtuna 5y ago

I've had exactly the same issue before. The only way I could resolve it was by "confirming" my phone number. I didn't have a phone number connected to that account, but Google helpfully let me confirm it anyways (i.e. it just accepted the phone number as proof of me being me, despite never seeing that phone number before).