ASK HN: I completely lost access to my main Gmail account

[SeckinJohn]

What are my options?

Google is not helping at all. I don't have backup codes, I broke the phone that had the 2FA app and I don't remember the password. There is no manual processing, no passport photo etc verification process. I lost all my old emails and probably offended so many people in my circle by not seeing/not replying to their emails. Is this really the end of my relationship with my old email addr? This doesn't make sense to me. I would pay to recover this trove of data and my personal reputation is in line here. Does Google not help at all in a situation like this?

[smt88]

No, Google does not help at all. You are stuck in a Kafkaesque hell. I know because I helped my brother out of one.

The only way I helped him was by having a friend who worked at Google. I hope you do too. You can tweet at them, but I think your Twitter account needs to be linked to the email address you no longer have access to.

I'm still so angry at Google that it actually made me emotional to type this. From the bottom of my heart, fuck that company for tricking us into thinking we can trust it with the most important parts of our digital lives. I hope the US breaks them up.

[mceachen]

You can at least get your whole family to pull down Google Takeout archives (yearly, or even quarterly for extra credit).

Having a recent backup makes the thought of losing everything there a while lot less threatening.

[smt88]

Because I have to use it for business, I also have a couple other paid email services that pull and archive all my Google mail, and I similarly mirror my photos/files.

[pickdenis]

I don't have a complete answer for you, but:

> probably offended so many people in my circle by not seeing/not replying to their emails.

If I were you, I'd BCC everyone whose addresses you remember with a short note saying to the effect of "I lost my other mail address [e-mail], gimme a sec pls" and I'm sure this incident will have no long-term impact on your reputation. Shit happens.

As far as getting help from Google goes, I think the only reliable method for non-paying customers is to raise a huge stink on websites like this or Twitter. Take this with a grain of salt, however; I'm much more likely to observe these big stinks and less likely to hear about people just calling support and getting help. It _may_ be possible.

[ggrrhh_ta]

Is it possible to repair the phone?