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Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

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Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#151

Post by toomuchtodo »

kybernetyk wrote: post #67
user3939382 wrote: post #17

I made the jump to Fastmail and I'm very happy with it. Web interface is at least as good as Gmail's. Thunderbird keeps a local copy of my emails, I control the email domain. I can create backups. The second you get back in you gotta get off this platform.

To make the transition easier you can configure Gmail to automatically forward mails you your FastMail address. They all then appear in the fastmail acc and you don't have to touch Gmail ever again.

Does Fastmail offer an option to set this up for you using the Gmail REST API after an import from Gmail into your Fastmail account? If not, please do so Fastmail folks if you read this!

https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/reference/rest/v1/Au...

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#152

Post by jsnell »

blacklight wrote: post #117
gatonegro wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few days ago I was going through an old Gmail account, and decided to get my data through Takeout. Told me it'd take a few hours, and the next day I had a link ready. Click the link, enter the password, it tells me I need a verification code that it wants to send to an address that stopped existing 15 years ago. As it turns out, Google is not sufficiently convinced that I am in fact the owner of the account, so it…

Takeout is a feature that Google was kind of forced to implement because of GDPR compliance. But they still try their best to make it so bad that people won't think of using it. First, getting to a point where you can actually schedule the creation of a zip takes a lot of clicking around - just to make sure that people won't bump into it unless they're explicitly searching for it. Second, the process is painfully slo…

Takeout was created in 2011, well before the GDPR existed or before there was any other kind of regulatory requirement for it.

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#153

Post by darkhelmet »

koonsolo wrote: post #128
coffeeblack wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, plus if you have no Google Takeout backup.

Google takeout is horrible. It either doesn't work or partly works.

I remember trying to download an archive of my email a few years ago. Hah, that was fun. I had a number of tries but each time the archive it gave me had between 20% to 50% of the total email messages.

It's been unreliable for years.

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#154

Post by grepfru_it »

hanklazard wrote: post #73
krono wrote: post #31

Whilst it might not be of help to OP, I suggest everyone else to do a data export for all your important services every once in a while and save it with your other backups. https://takeout.google.com https://account.microsoft.com/privacy/download-data

For sure. I believe I have this set to create an export and notify me the backup every quarter or so. Not the perfect solution, but until I do the right thing and switch over to fastmail, this at least ensures I can only lose a few months ( gulp ) worth of email.

Having lost a few months of email when my mail server crashed, it’s something you whine about for a day or two but then it’s business as usual.

As with all insurance you pay for what you want to risk. It didn’t hurt me much but I still went to daily offsite backups for my mailserver. The biggest gripe was standing up a new mailserver, make sure you keep your software up to date yall

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#155

Post by Freak_NL »

sph wrote: post #136
blacklight wrote: post #96

This is probably the #500 post on HN that reads "help I've been locked out of my Google account for Kafkaesque/inexplicable reasons and I have nobody to reach out to". If you're still using Google products as your primary drivers, then it's entirely your fault. Do yourself a favour in 2023: drop Google and all the filthy excrement that they produce. There's plenty of much better alternatives, and from a purely market…

Let me repeat it for those in the back: If you're still using Google products as your primary drivers, then it's entirely your fault. Your email is your most prized possession. It is more important than your credit card number. At least you can call your bank if someone steals it. Also, _ALWAYS_ use your own custom domain for emails. Do not host it @someone-else.com Stop using a free service from a terrible company t…

> […] stop recommending it to non-technical people!

Excepting loved ones, there is not much of a choice is there?

If you help set them up in a way that covers all the basics (personal domain, mail hosted at one of the current batch of paid, reliable parties like fastmail.com), then whenever something goes wrong, or whenever the friction to do something (anything!) is too high, it's not only your fault, but they'll lose trust in anything that doesn't look like a megacorp.

The other alternative is to just point them to Apple/Microsoft/Google where everything just works¹, and when things go tits-up (which, statistically speaking, only happens to a small percentage of people) they'll just blame that faceless megacorp, knowing full well that real choice is limited to those with technical know-how (or direct access to them).

I dislike the status quo, but aside from making sure I and my family aren't stuck like this, I don't see much leeway to change it.

1: It doesn't. But it will feel like it does, which is all that matters, and when it doesn't work, they'll just blame themselves.

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#156

Post by 650REDHAIR »

sph wrote: post #136
blacklight wrote: post #96

This is probably the #500 post on HN that reads "help I've been locked out of my Google account for Kafkaesque/inexplicable reasons and I have nobody to reach out to". If you're still using Google products as your primary drivers, then it's entirely your fault. Do yourself a favour in 2023: drop Google and all the filthy excrement that they produce. There's plenty of much better alternatives, and from a purely market…

Let me repeat it for those in the back: If you're still using Google products as your primary drivers, then it's entirely your fault. Your email is your most prized possession. It is more important than your credit card number. At least you can call your bank if someone steals it. Also, _ALWAYS_ use your own custom domain for emails. Do not host it @someone-else.com Stop using a free service from a terrible company t…

Do you host your own email?

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#157

Post by johnsea »

joenot443 wrote: post #108
schiffern wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!!

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!

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#158

Post by Freak_NL »

sph wrote: post #139
joe__f wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been thinking to move away from Gmail for a while now, what alternatives do you suggest?

Fastmail with your custom domain. I am a user, I am not paid to advertise them. I do not miss Google at all. If you do not like Fastmail, still get your own domain for emails.

Migrating to Fastmail is pretty painless too if you already have your own domain.

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#159

Post by _8j50 »

harshalizee wrote: post #123
blacklight wrote: post #96

This is probably the #500 post on HN that reads "help I've been locked out of my Google account for Kafkaesque/inexplicable reasons and I have nobody to reach out to". If you're still using Google products as your primary drivers, then it's entirely your fault. Do yourself a favour in 2023: drop Google and all the filthy excrement that they produce. There's plenty of much better alternatives, and from a purely market…

But realistically how do you do it? I've stopped signing up for any new Google products for well over half a decade now. Even moved my email to protonmail. I have a little over 500 accounts tied to my Gmail over the last two decades. Moving them is a pain but still possible. The problem arises when it comes to existing accounts with byzantine financial institutions. Trying to change email addresses that are linked to…

But it is free excrement

Re: Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account

#160

Post by [deleted] »

blacklight wrote: post #96

This is probably the #500 post on HN that reads "help I've been locked out of my Google account for Kafkaesque/inexplicable reasons and I have nobody to reach out to". If you're still using Google products as your primary drivers, then it's entirely your fault. Do yourself a favour in 2023: drop Google and all the filthy excrement that they produce. There's plenty of much better alternatives, and from a purely market…

[deleted]
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