About a year ago my laptop was stolen at the airport. I bought another, but could not remember my Gmail password, not could I remember the answers to the private questions, nor had I registered a call phone with Google.
So, I accepted that I had lost a bunch of memories and created a new Gmail account (being careful not to be so dumb this time).
Here is where it get interesting … I found an old hard-drive over the weekend; the one which had originally been in the stolen laptop before I swapped it for a larger one.
I booted from it – into Windows Vista and it auto-started my old Google Chat account. Yay!!
From that, I can see my chat sessions – and also my email. But that is a bit clumsy.
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I reckon that the auto-login details must be stored somewhere (registry?). Is there any program which can retrieve my password? I tried the utilities from NIRsoft but they did not work. Is there something better?
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Since Google chat lets me see my email, is there anyway that I can download it all to my PC? Mybe by using Thunderbird, etc, maybe by a Gmail backup or export function?
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I would also like to get back my passwords for yahoo mail & hotmail and for Yahoo chat, but that would just be a bonus, as my Gmail is what I would really like to get.
And, yes, I did write to Google and they were friendly and understanding and cited security issues and would not let me rest the password on the mail account.
I hope that someone will help me and that others will make a backup of their passwords and security questions before this happens to them.
Best Answer
Try my other suggested method first, because once you reset your password, you won't get back the old one.
If you can get to the gmail web interface, and it sounds like you can, then you should be able to add a recovery email address to your account.
Go to the gmail web interface, click the account drop-down (it'll be your name or username, near the top right), and choose "account settings."
This will take you to the Google Accounts page. Under the "email addresses and usernames" section, you should be able to click "edit" and add a new email address to your account. Use a non-gmail address. It sounds like you lost some other accounts too, so you may need to create a new yahoo, hotmail, or other such account. Don't use anything like mailinator since somebody else could get access to your account.
Once you add the secondary email address, you'll need to confirm it by checking that email address. Confirm the address. Now, go open a new browser session (different browser, incognito mode, other computer - whatever). Go to gmail.com, and click on "can't access your account." This will take you to a form where you should be able to send a reset link to your alternate email (which you just added).
Once you receive the reset email, you'll be able to choose a new password, and should have full access to your email again!