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With a little help from your friends

Trusted contacts for account recovery ¶ 

Silhouette of two people, side by side, with arms raised

Google last month created a new tool to recover your blogging account if you are ever locked out.

It's insurance that you have to set up while you still have access. And it involves a trusted friend or family member.

The new option works like this.

1. You invite a trusted person to become a recovery contact for the Google account that includes your blog.

(All active Blogger accounts have been Google accounts since 2014.)

2. They accept. They have seven days to do that, but you can invite them again.

3. If you ever lose access to your account, and you try to recover, Google will ask your trusted contact to confirm your identity.

Two cell phones, one with a message from Google asking for help verifying a sign-in, and the other telling the user that the contact had helped to restore access.
L: Google asks Brinley to confirm Elisa's attempt to sign in. R: Google tells Elisa that Brinley helped her to recover access. IMAGE: GOOGLE

4. Your contact's confirmation tells Google to restore access to you

Your trusted contact does not get access to your account, or to information in it.

Notes on the recovery game

Google grows suspicious of sign-in attempts from new locations, after long absences, or on new devices.

These can be legitimate, but sometimes Google requires additional proofs that you are you, and not some hacker impersonator.

This is a proof. Google describes the trusted contact as "helping" users to recover access. But Google relies on multiple proofs.

Google's aim: protecting our accounts.

Help

"Helping" suggests that help by the trusted contact is a factor (maybe a strong one) in confirming your identity, while leaving open the possibility that it may not be sufficient in some situations.

It's new, and we'll have to see how it works in practice. Meanwhile, I think that keeping your contact and recovery information up to date in Google settings is the most important thing you can do to secure your account.

But a trusted contact can help too.

"Two friends" image courtesy of Mitesh7587 CC BY-SA 4.0. ("Two phones" from Google.)

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Comments

  1. Peggy KNovember 25, 2025 at 1:18 AM

    Totally agree that making sure you have current recovery options set up is really really imported.

    I think the key to this new option is to add someone who is both trustworthy and will respond in a timely way if you are locked out of your account. And, of course, keep this up to date - if your trusted contact is your girlfriend/boyfriend, and you break up, you likely need to replace them with a different contact.

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    1. AdamNovember 25, 2025 at 2:11 AM

      I probably should have mentioned that you can have up to 10 contacts. Though that feels like a lot.

      It's not entirely clear how Google will use this. What's to prevent your friend from being fooled by an impersonator? Especially if Google passes along a message like "Elisa Beckett needs your help."

      But what is clear is that Google will use this, and it could be helpful. And it is also clear how to set it up.

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