They did have a method to recover their account that they tried, though - they said that they used the account recovery codes, but that they were rejected. (Those would be the codes that Google gives you when you initially set up 2FA.)

When I first got the account, my cell phone was a recovery method. Later in life I imported the cell into google voice... thus when the recovery codes failed, there was no other option.

Sorry, I meant an external recovery method. Another e-mail address or a phone number.

Another email address is useless.

Another phone humber only works if you didn't lose that phone.

Why would another email address be useless?

Google doesn't allow you to recover a Google account using only your recovery email address. Despite its name, the recovery email address is not used to recover Google accounts AFAICT, it's only used to receive notifications about security-related events.

I had email address X (gmail) that I hadn't logged into for a long time. One day I tried to log in to it. Correct password, but Google, for some reason, simply decided there's something suspicious about my login and blocked it. X had Y as the "recovery email", and I had access to Y, and I indeed received an email from Google sent to Y that it blocked a suspicious login to X. However, THERE WAS NO WAY TO USE Y TO GAIN ACCESS TO X. Google simply did not offer that option for X, and I had no idea why.

This is not a recovery address, it's a lie. Its notifications address, mostly used to force us to draw some parts of our social graph for them.

op said they had recovery codes but they didn’t work.

You can have all the right details and recovery methods but if at some point they request you to provide the code they sent to the phone you don't have for the last 10 years......... That's it.

> if at some point they request you to provide the code they sent to the phone you don't have for the last 10 years

AFAIK once 2FA is up, you can remove your phone number from GMail.

I know it takes time to set up a recovery account (in case the account is inactive for x months), to remove a phone number, etc. but if one's GMail is important it could be worth doing both now if it hasn't already been done.

You will eventually be forced to re-add it at some point.

The point is (it's not my account) that unless you religiously update the phone number in all your accounts you will at some point lose access to some of them despite being able to prove with all the other details it's you who created and used them.

Just because.

Because phone number is a very valuable identifier for the ad company.

I don't think you will be forced. I removed it long ago, and still don't have it.

Go take a look on GrapheneOS discussion forum, there's several people reporting it already.

Oh, and no, recovery email account is useless. Its been set since the inception and there's not way to use it to regain control over the account.

It's a deliberate misnoner.

I can't get my Rockstar account because it has 2FA with an app that I somehow lost.