This is a long shot, but if you have a spare Android phone lying around consider doing a factory reset on it and signing in with that account during the initial

This is a long shot, but if you have a spare Android phone lying around consider doing a factory reset on it and signing in with that account during the initial setup. My situation was somewhat different. I had a rarely-used account with no recovery email/phone. When I entered the password correctly using a web browser, I was asked to provide a (new) phone number so I could be sent a verification code before continuing. I didn't want to provide a phone number, so I tried to log in with that account during the initial setup of a freshly-reset Android phone and it worked (allowing me to add a recovery email). I'm curious if this strategy helps in your case. (You mentioned getting a new phone, but I assume you are signing in on that phone after it has been set up, which may be different to signing in during the initial setup.) By the way, in your reply to a comment on 2-factor authentication (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30051366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30051366) you said you had a recovery account. There is a difference between enabling Google's "2-Step Verification" and having a plain recovery email/phone (though from other comments it sounds like you can get locked out even with 2FA, and not all 2FA methods are equal). P.S. If you want to allow people to contact you privately, consider adding some contact details to your HN profile.