[jknz]

A funny one: I am locked out of a former Gmail that forwards every email to my currently active address. This "forward everything" is not throughout IMAP/Pop but some Gmail feature.

One day I couldn't login anymore to the old account (maybe I typed the wrong password 3 times or maybe it was deemed inactive because I would never login?)

I try the recovery process once in a while with everything (code by SMS, code by recovery email, etc). Never works.

But I still receive every email sent to that account through the "forward everything" setup from XX years ago.

[emanuensis]

NB forwarding does NOT include "spam" email... i have all my Gmail accounts funnel into one and i check the spam buckets of all, every 4 weeks (otherwise Google turfs em). i usually find a few (rather important) false positives in that monthly sweep.

Further note that gMail filters at every step, eg this includes a downstream "archive" account. So there are false positives coming from a "known" [single source] good account and of already vetted emails...

i do wish there was a way to forward everything ... where everything meant everything ... filtering optional.

[lukebyear]

You can do this by setting up a filter that matches all messages that don’t contain something like “thisrandomstringwillneveroccurinthewild”. You can have the filter forward the message AND day “never send to spam”.

[koheripbal]

He cannot change the filter on an account he has no access to.

[pR0Ps]

You can fix this by adding a filter called "is:spam" that has the "never send to spam" option checked.

See https://cmetcalfe.ca/blog/forwarding-spam-with-gmail.html

[koheripbal]

He cannot fix anything because he can't login to the account.

[Infinitesimus]

Ha I'm in the same boat as well. Locked out of my first ever Gmail account and thank the stars that I had this forward everything set up.

Every few months, I try the recovery process again to no avail. "Sign-in with Google" is very convenient so it'll be a pain to move to proton + outlook but c'est la vie

[Multicomp]

Are you me? I also don't have access to my first Google account but it forwards all of its emails to my current one.

I can confirm it works as well since someone sometimes fat fingers whatever email address they use for car repair and I get the invoice for it due to Google not respecting the dots in the email address.

My master plan is to get hired at gmail just so I can click the admin reset password button and get access to that account directly so I can finally see the very first emails I ever received.

[briggers]

Similar thing happened to me. Lost access to a perfectly set-up forwarding account. The account recovery process is impossible because I nolonger have the same phone number from 10 years ago.

[nucleardog]

Hey me too! Changed my phone number like 12-14 years ago so can no longer access the account.

And same as everyone else, already had forwarding in place so it's just kind of... there in an uncomfortable limbo. I don't really use it for much so it's not a big loss but it would be nice to resolve one way or another.

[RonanTheGrey]

I stopped using "Sign in with Google" about a year ago and moved to storing all my passwords in my Firefox account and in Bitwarden (and sometimes in iCloud for good measure).

I never use Google to login anywhere anymore. I create an email and an (autogenerated secure) password everywhere. If they don't see fit to support this, they don't get my business.

Then I just let Bitwarden/Firefox take care of everything. Logins, etc. I have 500? passwords stored. Don't know any of them. I prefer it this way.

[swiley]

The same thing happened to me, I happened to notice and set up the forwarding the day I lost access to the account. I feel pretty lucky for that, it made leaving much easier.

[dannyw]

I wouldn't be surprised if forwarding is a "This account is compromised" indicator and is unintentionally short circuiting and causing accounts to be locked out.

[Can_Not]

That makes sense in my scenario... im in this scenario, but if true, that just means the owner loses the account and the alleged infiltrator(s) keep the forwarding.

[ShinyObject]

Similar thing happened to me.

I've got an old gmail address with pop3 enabled that my main gmail account pulls emails out of. Hadn't logged into the old address in a couple years because everything was working. One day I decided to rotate all of my passwords, got to that old gmail account and it refused to let me log in and wouldn't say why.

"No big deal" I thought, I use a password manager, have all historical passwords, have the 2fa device, same phone number, same address, I have access to the recovery email address, and pop3 still works so I know I have the current credentials. I'll just reset the password.

Nope, wrong. Even though I have every possible form of identification the account will not let me log in via the web interface and will not let me reset the password. I get stuck in a loop that eventually ends with "Thanks for verifying your email. Google couldn't verify that [e-mail] belongs to you."

The pop3 functionality still works, but the password can never be reset and the web interface can never be logged into. I suppose this will continue until the day google decides to ax pop3 and imap, no doubt accompanied by a blog post with comments disabled explaining it's for our own good, at which point that address will be lost to the sands of time.

[iforgotpassword]

Thanks for that anecdote. I was planning on using the lockdown home office situation to finally buy some domain and set up my own email server.

I wasn't sure whether I should set up forwarding on my Gmail account or have the server fetch mail from it regularly. Was leaning towards the second option but I think now it's settled which option to choose.

Edit: Ok there's one more stupid scenario. Let's assume I do lose access to the Gmail account but forwarding still works. Now I'm in an accident and stay at a hospital and totally forget to pay the renewal fee for my domain. Boom, some domain squatter gets all my mails. Actually, that would even apply without Gmail in the mix. Sure I'd set up automatic payment for renewal but still, can I be a little paranoid here? ;-)

[Symbiote]

Choose a domain that accepts 10 year renewals, and extend by one year every year.

If you're in a 9/10 year coma, you probably don't care about your email any more.

[tzs]

You can even automate that, for up to 100 total years of domain ownership, if you are willing to deal with Network Solutions.

They offer terms of 20 years and 100 years, which are longer than the standard maximum 10 years. The way it is implemented is that they register the domain for you for the maximum allowed time (10 years for most TLDs), and then each year the extend it by a year keeping the expiration as far out as allowed for that TLD.

I looked at this a while ago, when contemplating moving my domain in .net from there to Namecheap (where I already had a .us domain), because they gave a big enough discount on 100 years that it brought the price per year to $9.99, which is pretty good for a .net.

Then I realized that even if I lived long enough to become the oldest living human I'd still only get about halfway through the 100 years making the cost per year effectively $20, which is a crappy price for .net.

Now it is even worse. They have doubled the price for 100 years, making it a crappy deal. Even if annual .net renewal went up 10% a year, it would take 29 years before you would have been better off going with 100 year NS over year to year Namecheap. (They NS 20 year plan would be better off after 16 years).

At 5% annual increase, NS 20 is about the same cost as Namecheap, and NS 100 beats Namecheap after 44 years.

(This is all assuming that in the Namecheap case the money that would have been spent upgrade on NS 20 or NS 100 is just sitting around. If you assume it is invested in some safe long term investment, NS 100 and to a lesser extent NS 20 makes even less sense. Also there is the risk that at some point NS will no longer be around and their demise happens in a way that kills these long term registration programs).

[toomuchtodo]

If your payment method can be auto charged each year, and is paid for out of something like investment income, your domain is essentially perpetual (I do this).

[dingaling]

The domain might be but the infrastructure likely won't be.

[toomuchtodo]

Infra can be replaced, online identity (email, etc) not so easily. I wish I could pay the Internet Archive to host my email!

[joyj2nd]

"Thanks for that anecdote. I was planning on using the lockdown home office situation to finally buy some domain and set up my own email server."

Don't do this. Buy an email with a domain that offers email. e.g. gandi.net or infomaniak.com They do have phone numbers if things go wrong. Hosting your email is easy. Having you emails delivered and not blocked is an art.

[kshannon]

This also happened to me. I have a second email address I set up and set all forwarding to another Gmail. I've lost the password to the second account, but still receive all of the messages. it's not that I need to get into the account or use that email address. mostly I just want to make sure it's secure and nobody else can get into it.

Who knows... maybe someone else recovered it that he's using it as their primary address and I'm just getting copies of all their messages?