Many of us have a lot of digital data locked away in our Google accounts: emails, photos, chats, documents, schedules, restaurant reviews. Losing access to that data is likely to be fairly high on the catastrophe scale.
There are steps you can take before that happens to minimize the chances of you and your Google account being permanently separated. You should put the tightest security possible around the account, which includes setting up two-factor authentication, and you should review your options for regaining access should the worst happen.
Those options now include Recovery Contacts, which is where you specify friends and relatives who you trust that can help you get back into a locked account. Here’s how it works, plus information about the other account recovery features you need to be aware of.
Set Up Recovery Contacts
We’ll start with the newest feature for account recovery, which is Recovery Contacts. This is a list of up to 10 people you specify, and when you’re trying to get back into your Google account, they can be asked to confirm access in the same way that you might normally approve a prompt on your own phone (which is helpful if your phone is lost, for example).
To set up your recovery contacts, head to your Google account on the web, then click Security. This is the page where you can control access to your account, check the apps and devices you’ve linked to it, and review recent account activity. Under the list of sign in options, click Recovery contacts.
Recovery Contacts is a new option for your Google account.
Photograph: David NieldClick Add recovery contact to start building your list. You need to enter the email addresses of everyone you want to add as a recovery contact, and you’ll be given some suggestions on screen. Your chosen contacts must have a Google account they have access to, so Gmail addresses are required here.
Once you’ve picked someone (and you can only add one person to the list at a time), click Continue and then Send request. The selected contact then gets a message in their inbox, with a link that’s valid for seven days. They can choose to accept or ignore the request, and if they agree to the deal, you’ll get a confirmation email. You also get an email when the request is dispatched, to guard against someone adding recovery contacts without your knowledge or consent.
It’s a good idea to choose people you’re regularly in touch with as your recovery contacts. They should be people you can call or that you see face-to-face, so that when they get the email from Google, you can tell them what’s happening and reassure them that they’re not being phished. Google says they should be people who can respond in 15 minutes if you’re having trouble with your account.
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