Google Questions & Unofficial Answers: "I've been locked out of my Google
account! What can I do? How can I prevent this in the future? HELP!"
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001159.html
("Google Questions & Unofficial Answers" Community Page:
https://plus.google.com/communities/111481685962796128662)
Locked out of your Google account, eh? Yeah, that can definitely ruin
your day, especially when you depend on Gmail and other Google services.
The best way to avoid this problem is to take proactive steps ahead of
time, which I'll get to in a moment. But for now, you just want back in,
right?
Basically, whether your lockout is for entirely innocent reasons -- for
example, forgetting your password -- or the account was suspended due to
Google suspecting some form of illegal activity or terms of service
violation, the entry point to the account recovery system is the forms
that start here:
https://www.google.com/accounts/recovery
These will guide you through a series of questions that in most cases
can get you up and running again in short order.
In practice, how painless this process will be depends on a number of
factors.
For example, if your account has been suspended/closed by Google for
what they suspect are illicit or otherwise improper activities, you will
likely face an appeals process (even if you're actually innocent)
that -- frankly -- is not ideal. This is an area where Google continues to
improve but more work still needs to be done.
In simpler cases -- like the forgotten password -- the situation should
be much smoother, especially if you've proactively (that is, previously)
set up the account recovery options that Google offers here:
https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/183723
This allows you to specify a non-Google email address and/or mobile
number to receive recovery codes that you can use to regain access to
your Google account. Don't be paranoid about giving Google this
information. They're not going to use it for anything other than helping
you get back into your account or dealing with other account-related
issues, and they won't give this info to anyone else.
Of course, you need to have set these up in advance of having access
problems for these techniques to be useful -- that's why Google prompts
you to do so at intervals. So set them up! If you don't have an
alternate email or mobile phone, and can't get either, then at the very
least you should ask a *highly trusted* friend or relative to allow you
to use theirs for this purpose. This definitely isn't ideal and should
be avoided if possible for obvious reasons, but can be a practical
alternative that is better than not having any recovery data specified
at all.
If you're locked out and haven't set up recovery email or phone numbers,
things get tougher. Google has been wisely ending support for security
questions, because -- well -- they suck for all kinds of reasons. I've
long marveled at how so many people seem to feel that they must answer
security questions honestly (who really needs to know the name of your
first grade teacher?), but really, security questions have become more
of a problem than solution. More info on this at:
https://security.googleblog.com/2015/05/new-research-some-tough-questions-for.html
In some cases, if you don't have security phone numbers or addresses on
file when you lose account access, Google's recovery forms will
alternatively ask you a series of questions about your account that
typically only you would know the answers to. The problem is that you
may not remember the correct answers to those questions either -- many
people don't -- so you really do want to set up that recovery data ahead
of time and avoid getting to this point, or to other even more
complicated aspects of the recovery flow. So again, please do take the
time to specify the recovery phone and/or email address in advance of
needing them!
A couple of related points:
Did you know that you can download virtually all of your data you have
stored with Google? Yep, email, files, all kinds of goodies. You can
take them to another service or just store them on flash drives under
your bed if you're into that kind of thing.
Take a look at the very cool Google Takeout system at:
https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout
You can also use this page for the same purpose:
https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3024190
I wish all firms provided a feature like this. Note however that this is
not a way to download your data after you've been locked out of your
account -- you need regular account access to use it. I have long felt
that there should be some means for downloading your own data from
Google in various situations even if you have lost access to the account
for some reason not involving violations of law -- after all, it's still
your data -- but this is admittedly a quite complicated issue that goes
beyond the scope of this posting.
Finally, there's the unpleasant but unavoidable question of what happens
to your data if you're incapacitated or even die. Google has two primary
mechanisms for dealing with this. In the latter case, the form at:
https://support.google.com/accounts/contact/deceased
is available to help deal with related issues after the fact.
But a much better alternative is to designate who should have access to
your account in the future, if for some reason you are unable to access
it for some period of time that you specify. This is handled through
Google's Inactive Account Manager, which is here:
https://www.google.com/settings/account/inactive
Again, this is a feature that you must proactively configure in advance
for it to be useful.
When it comes to avoiding problems with accessing your Google account,
planning ahead and taking advantage of the many features and tools that
Google makes available for this purpose, makes a great deal of sense.
Be seeing you.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein ([email protected]): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org/pfir-info
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://google.com/+LaurenWeinstein
Twitter: http://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
I have consulted to Google, but I am not currently
doing so -- my opinions expressed here are mine alone.
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