Gmail, why have you forsaken me?

My friend Steve Shankland asked today for feedback from Gmail users because he's thinking about switching...I wrote the following...and then in re-reading realized that this is really bothering me and maybe I should blog about it. So, mostly I'm just pasting what I wrote to Shankland here.

If you read my blog and you work for Google, I would *love* some help on this. I gather its not easily apparent to figure out how to render this sort of help to a non-Google friend (or Chris DiBona would have helped me out already by now). I'm the first one to admit that forgetting my password was stupid on my part, but I'm also betting that it's happened before to most of you. What's up with the 5-day mandatory waiting period before you can go through the protocol to recover a Gmail password?

Hi Stephen,

I'm a pretty loyal Gmail user...lets see so far this year I have 23730
messages in my Gmail inbox (multiply by 2 for yearly average load and
then multiply that by 5 and you'll get an idea of how much mail).

I don't have many problems or complaints...except about what happens if
you forget your password (which I have now done). Of course my "backup
account" is pre-set to the account I used most when I signed up for
Gmail in 2003...and that would be danese dot cooper at sun dot com (my bad for not
changing it when I left, I know...but I never used it before this). So
what happens when I tell Gmail that I've forgotten my password is it
sends a reset notice to my now non-existant danese dot cooper at sun dot com.
If I then tell Gmail that I no longer have access to that mail account, they ask
me to answer a "secret question", ask me to type a captcha to make sure I'm
not a bot and then inform me that I can't use the account for 5 days!!! at which
point some magical second secret question event will supposedly occur.

But I get 500 emails a day at my gmail address (which is
danese at gmail , btw...and I'm not about to give up and start a new one
because its just too easy to remember and everybody knows this one,
right?).

And of course my browser has a cookie for my forgotten password, so its
still successfully polling for mail. One day soon its gonna expire and
I'm gonna be up shit creek without a paddle for at least 5 days. What
do you want to bet its gonna be an important 5 days?

You'd think...since we're so well connected and all...that I'd be able
to get one of my Google pals to fix this for me? So far, no love.
Apparently there's no obvious way for a Google employee to vouch for the
identity of a Gmail user and request a reset. Nor have I had any luck
charming Sun into reactivating danese dot cooper at sun.com for a nanosecond so
I can catch the reset email.

What's a Diva to do?

...and of course if you have a Gmail account...Google wants you to use
that login for 100% of your interactions with Google...

So I can't log in to YouTube, I can't work on Google Docs, I can't
change my vacation settings (done only through the Gmail web
interface)...

I've been trying to fix this for 2 months now because I know that cookie
expiration is about to happen...

Sure wish somebody would help out with this...

(thanks for listening)

Danese

Comments

[Dawn Foster]

Well, you just prompted me to check my gmail alternate email address, and yep, it was pointed at one that autoforwards to gmail. Not good. Changed it to something better. Thanks for the reminder.

[Philip]

Well, I don't work for google, so I can't be sure about this, but my guess is that, "there's no obvious way for a Google employee to vouch for the identity of a Gmail user", because there's no way for Google to vouch for all of its employees. One needs to only look at Valleywag to know that it's rather hard for a company to trust each and every one of their employees, and with a need to treat everyone equally, they can trust no one.

Though the diva could probably get an audience with either Larry, Sergei or Eric ;)

[Shelle]

Danese,

Try goosh.org type in gmail and see if it down loads? Also I know this is strange but but can you get your Google Reader to read your mail (through the little subscription link) then forward that subscription to yourself else where.

I have been trying to get Google to combine my two accounts with the same name that they (Google) created by accident due to AdWords. I got "if it were affecting AdWords AdWords could help" but since it's the "free gmail" account no one can help since they (Google) don't hire anyone to work on the "free" applications.

[Noirin]

If you can still read mails to danese@gmail, I'd go to a different computer, or use a different browser, and set up another gmail address (let's call it lostpassword@gmail).

Go to Settings > Accounts, and tell it that you want to send mail as danese@gmail

That'll send off a mail to danese@gmail with a link in it. Click the link, and lostpassword can send mail as danese.

Then it's time to go to danese's Settings > Forwarding and POP/IMAP. Forward a copy of incoming mail to lostpassword, and leave Gmail's copy in the inbox (or archive, as you like).

You'll have five days of pain as you set up all your filters all over again - but it might be better than nothing?