Google announces Recovery Contacts: ask your friends and family to help you sign in t

[harlan4096]

Google has announced a new safety feature for securing user accounts. If you can't sign in to your account, you can now ask friends and family to help you regain access to your account.

There are multiple ways to recover access to a Google account such as resetting the password, getting a one-time code via SMS, using an alternative email address connected to the account, or by using backup codes, etc.

Now, you can now recover your account in a new way. Let's say someone has forgotten their password, or their phone, or the device that had their passkey or 2FA authenticator, email client, etc. They can't receive a text to sign in, or use alternate methods immediately. Recovery Contacts is Google's answer to this problem. You simply add a trusted contact, like a close friend or a family member, to your account. It's important to note that the contact will need to have a Google account. That should be fairly obvious, but I think it's better to mention it. Don't confuse this with a recovery email address, that's different, as you own both accounts.

Setting up Recovery Contacts is simple, go to your Google account's Security and Sign-in page, at https://myaccount.google.com/security. You should see an option that says "Recovery Contacts". Click on it.

Or you can directly go to g.co/recovery-contacts and click on "Add recovery contact". This opens a pop-up, which is populated with some suggested email addresses belonging to your friends or family.

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