Avoiding a Lockout of Your Google Account

If you had to pick an account that getting locked out of would cause the most headaches, your Google account would probably be up near the top of the list. That is assuming that you have a Windows PC and use Google Chrome, or an Android phone. Mac users may be able to skip this article.

Google, rightly. doesn't make it simple to get back into a locked out account. But they do provide more than one way of restoring your account access, including a new one mentioned in this article.

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).

I have a friend whose phone was stolen while travelling. He was not able to recover his account and lost access to many valuable photos and a YouTube account he used to promote his business. If he'd followed some of the steps in this article, that wouldn't have happened. 

It may take some time and be a bit of a hassle to get your account set up so you can recover it, but it's worth it.