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> Also, never lose your phone number. I can't get back into my Google account even though I have the username, password and recovery email because I can never g

> Also, never lose your phone number. I can't get back into my Google account even though I have the username, password and recovery email because I can never get the SMS code. This is an excellent point. Google seems to be uninterested in addressing this transparently, but despite their push for phishing-resistant MFA and first factor sign-in options, they still consider a phone number to be golden evidence. My father changed his phone number last year and never updated his Google account. Despite having a recovery email address he could access, TOTP, and printed backup codes, it was not enough. Google wanted to “verify it really was him” after a move (and IP address change) and it doesn’t even allow a password reset to be authenticated with any other recovery option. Phone number or bust.

rurp 3y ago
I have heard and read about a number of similar cases where people can get completely locked out of their account despite being able to authenticate correctly, because they lost access to some other required resource that Google decided is essential. I'm very skeptical about the utility of these types of security policies. I'm sure they prevent hacking in some cases, but they also greatly increase the chance of a legit user permanently losing their account which is a pretty freaking bad outcome for someone who has all of their email, messages, photos, documents and more stored in their Google account. Given the importance of these digital services I expect that refusing to provide support to users in this situation, as Google is well known to do, won't be legally tolerated at some point in the future. Unfortunately this won't be changing anytime soon, so the best we can do is inform others about the risks of relying solely on Google for anything important and hope people backup what they can.

rurp 3y ago

I have heard and read about a number of similar cases where people can get completely locked out of their account despite being able to authenticate correctly, because they lost access to some other required resource that Google decided is essential. I'm very skeptical about the utility of these types of security policies. I'm sure they prevent hacking in some cases, but they also greatly increase the chance of a legit user permanently losing their account which is a pretty freaking bad outcome for someone who has all of their email, messages, photos, documents and more stored in their Google account. Given the importance of these digital services I expect that refusing to provide support to users in this situation, as Google is well known to do, won't be legally tolerated at some point in the future. Unfortunately this won't be changing anytime soon, so the best we can do is inform others about the risks of relying solely on Google for anything important and hope people backup what they can.