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I lost access to a Google account almost a decade ago; trying to get it back was one massive Kafka trap. Every few years I go back and try navigating the Kafka trap again hoping against hope for better results. But I’m still locked out.

It’s particularly frustrating because IMAP is setup for it into another google account, so I can still send and receive email from the address but I’m fully locked out of the service.

Some precious files were in that account from childhood.

Just create a Hacker News post and hope it goes viral and then some Google employees will unlock it for you ;)

The official Google support channel: Social outrage in online communities. If you cannot generate it, you are not worthy enough of eing treated fairly, worm!

How did you lose the account? Was there a reason from Google?

I once had a functional bug where a MFA recovery email would receive the token, but the system would flag any further steps as ‘suspicious activity’. I also had an active gmail session via thunderbird, so I could easily have proven my claims legitimacy if required. Alas, there is no concept of support at google.

I lost access to a YouTube account, which had my gaming videos, when they went all in on Google Plus. Somehow they messed it up and I couldn't get through the recovery process. I remember I was forced to change my password and then I could no longer log in. After that I decided I would never make a new YouTube channel again.

I feel no reason short of a mandate from a judge is so good to allow Google (edit: or any other tech company, really) to completely lock someone out of their personal data. Give them a takeout link and send them on their way, at least.

>I feel no reason short of a mandate from a judge is so good to allow Google (edit: or any other tech company, really) to completely lock someone out of their personal data.

Yes. It's a travesty. And those who work at those tech companies should be ashamed to be associated with such behavior.

That said, if your data isn't hosted (even if just as a backup) on your hardware, it isn't your data.

If someone else is hosting your data then it doesn't belong to you, unless you have a strong copyright claim, and the money to pay lawyers to litigate such a claim.

1. Pay for one.google.com using a secondary account

2. Add your former account to your family

3. Accept the Google One invite through IMAP

4. Contact Google One support from your secondary account

Hope this helps

> This happens regularly (perhaps not frequently) to people with their Gmail account.

this should be regulated. For example, electricity/utility companies cannot just abruptly close your account, without giving massive notice in advance, and justified reason (such as non-payment).

The internet has become utilities, and it's not just the pipe, but the monopoly applications on it such as email, etc. Being deplatformed unjustly has as bad an effect as being disconnected from the grid and utilities. This means the gov't needs to make sure this can only happen under regulated ways, and not at the whims of the company.

Well, thankfully, you cannot be deplatformed from e-mail, since it's a protocol, not platform.

Both Google Mail and Microsoft Outlook could keep your e-mails from being delivered to people who still have an e-mail with them (and vice-versa, but if it got that bad,would you still be willing to keep in touch with the people, and do business with the companies willing to put up with that ?

I had my YouTube account banned because I changed the channel name into something that trigged their AI. Maybe it was that I’ve never uploaded a video or written a comment? Who knows. Anyway I was fully expecting to have lost my account (and my playlists) forever based on the bad reputation Google has, but when I clicked the “do you disagree with this” appeal thing it took very little time to have my account restored.

This is very anecdotal, and Google’s automated process is probably as horrible as it’s generally made out to be. It was just so surprising to me that it wasn’t, that I thought I would share it.

YouTube refused to let me create an account (after some trial and error) with the word "angry" in the channel name.

I have "angry" in my channel name, anecdotally. So it could have been something else.

All I know is that when I took that word out it let me create the account. This was somewhere around the same time as your account creation. It might be more complicated than that, but I'm not about to try and reverse-engineer it.

Oh I believe you, was more commenting on the uncertainty of all of it.

Depends, what date did you create that channel, they may have changed rules since.

The problem is the rules aren't specified, if you fall afoul of a rule you do not get told which rule it is, and the rules are AI-based decisions that are hard to even understand. If the process was transparent, it would be a lot easier to deal with.

I understood that, and I was trying to help reverse-engineer what might have changed.

Probably two years ago or so.

Comment moderation is also a shitshow, my comments routinely get silently deleted (or worse: shadowbanned).

And the most ridiculous in this, is how they get deleted/banned a LOT more if you use YouTube's own syntax for time-links ! (Maybe the automatic moderation system thinks these are external links or something?!?)

> This happens regularly (perhaps not frequently) to people with their Gmail account. Google's AI says no, and there are very few people reporting successfully navigating the system to get their account back.

Yep, happened to me too. I have a gmail account from back when gmail was still in private beta. I know the correct password. I have access to the recovery email. I can't log in.

NEVER depend on Google for anything critical. If you're unlucky you'll get completely screwed over, and you won't be able to do anything about it.