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Comment by schiffern | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for everyone's help. Backup email works now. Looks like (fingers still crossed) I'll be getting back into my main account in 48 hours.

Obviously I'm re-working my email solution as we speak... starting with backing up my Google data!

Lots of good recommendations in this thread. Learn from my mistakes. It can happen to you!!

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I was about to take out my work (G) laptop and send this down the appropriate channels. Very glad to see someone else stepped in already.

This is definitely I (personally) wish we could do better, I feel embarrassed and very slightly partially responsible whenever I see our support failures making the front page of HN.

Thank you!

Hi there! I hate to pile on, but I have a very similar issue and was wondering if you'd be willing to help. About a year and a half I lost access to a Gmail account with emails going back all the way to the beginning. Lots of sentimental messages, stuff like that. Logged into it after a long while, started looking at picture attachments out of nostalgia and somehow tripped an algorithm that locked me out. I stupidly did not have 2FA set up as this was not my primary account, so had no other way to offer proof that I was the rightful owner, despite having the correct password. I tried all the usual things - waiting a long time, trying old devices (phone, laptop), going back to the old location I used to live... nothing worked. Would love to regain access to years of memories.

What did you do? What worked?

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