Locked out of your Google or Apple account

What this means

This one is different from the others here. There is no attacker. You have simply run into the fact that the security protecting your account works just as well against you.

It usually happens for an ordinary reason. You changed phone and did not move your authenticator app. You forgot the password and the recovery phone is a number you gave up two years ago. You were signed in on the old laptop and never anywhere else.

What makes it serious is how much sits behind that one account: years of photos, your email, and often the two-factor codes for everything else. And unlike a bank, there is no branch to walk into. Recovery is an automated process that judges how much you look like the real owner.

A second signed-in device can be surprisingly valuable. Apple can display verification codes on a trusted iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, or Mac. Google prompts can reach another eligible phone signed in to your Google Account.

That last point shapes everything below. Google and Apple both weigh signals rather than checking a single answer, and both punish impatience. Repeated failed attempts and unfamiliar devices make the automated systems less willing to help, not more.

Warning signs

These are the situations that turn into a lockout, usually a while before it happens:

• Your two-factor codes live on one phone, with no backup and no saved recovery codes.
• The recovery phone number on the account is one you no longer use.
• The recovery email is an address you have lost access to, or is the locked account itself.
• You have never written down or printed a recovery code.
• One person in the household holds the only working sign-in for shared photos and purchases.

Recover now

First 15 minutes

1. Stop guessing the password. Repeated failures make the automated recovery treat you as suspicious. Two or three attempts is enough.
2. Find a device that is still signed in. An old phone, a tablet, a laptop, a TV app. Any signed-in device is the single strongest recovery signal you have, and often lets you reset everything in a couple of minutes.
3. Use a device and network you have used before. Recovery from your home Wi-Fi on your usual laptop succeeds far more often than the same attempt from a borrowed phone.
4. Start the official recovery flow for your provider, in the tab below. Do not use a third-party service that promises to recover accounts. They are either scams or they make things worse.
5. Answer what you can, and submit anyway. Both systems weigh many signals. An incomplete honest answer beats a confident wrong one.

Work through the official recovery

Today

1. Work out what else breaks while you are locked out. If this account holds your authenticator app, other services need attention too.
2. Get into your email another way if you can, since password resets for other services will land there.
3. Write down what you do remember about the account: when you created it, old passwords, devices you used, the recovery number you originally set. Recovery forms ask for this.
4. If it is a shared family account, check whether anyone else has access on their device.
5. Be patient with Apple’s waiting period. There is no way to speed it up and no one to call who can.

Verify recovery

• You can sign in from a browser you have never used before, using the new password.
• The recovery phone number and email on the account are current and belong to you.
• Two-factor codes reach a device you actually carry.
• New recovery codes are saved somewhere outside the account.
• Your photos, mail, and purchases are all present.

Prepare now

Recovery routes

• Recovery codes are printed or written down and kept somewhere physical, not in the account itself.
• The recovery phone number is a number you will still have next year.
• The recovery email is a different provider, so one outage does not take both.
• Apple users have set a recovery contact or a recovery key.
• A second device stays signed in: a trusted Apple device or another phone that can receive Google prompts.

Reducing what a lockout costs

• Two-factor codes are in an app that syncs to more than one device, or are backed up.
• Photos exist somewhere other than this one account.
• A trusted person could get into the essentials if something happened to you.
• You have signed in on a second device recently, so it stays a valid recovery signal.

Common mistakes

• Guessing the password over and over. It makes the automated system trust you less, and that system is the only one deciding.
• Starting recovery from a brand new device on unfamiliar Wi-Fi. Familiar device and location is one of the strongest signals you can offer.
• Paying a service that promises account recovery. No such service has a back channel. They take the money, or they take what is left of the account.
• Keeping recovery codes inside the account they protect. A screenshot in the photo library of the locked account helps nobody.
• Setting the recovery email to the same account. Surprisingly common, and it removes the one route back.
• Starting a second Apple recovery request. It resets the clock rather than speeding it up.

Sources

• Google: Recover your Google Account
• Google: Tips to complete account recovery steps
• Apple: If you forgot your Apple Account password
• Apple: How to use account recovery
• Apple: Set up an account recovery contact
• Apple: Trusted phone numbers and trusted devices
• Google: Sign in with Google prompts