Almost all of us use a standard set of tools on the Internet: social networks, various instant messengers for informal communication and mail for correspondence in a more business-like format.
True, as a rule, they spend more time in networks than in the mailbox (objectively, because there is a huge amount of information there). And it so happened that it is easier for us to remember the login and password from VKontakte than from the box, for example, on Rambler, which we go to once a week. “What to do if I forgot the password from the mail?”, “How to find out the password for the mailbox?” and many other similar questions are asked by ordinary users. We will give the answer to them (and not only) in this article.
How the authorization system works
So, let's start with a general description of how a user is authorized on a mail server. In order to log in, you are asked to enter a username and password. A login is a user identifier, which, as a rule, consists of letters and numbers, and is unique. He is also rightfully called the username on the service where he has an account (in our case, this is mail).
In addition to the login, each account owner also has a password. When they are entered, a person can log into the account and, thus, gain access to all the information inside it. Accordingly, the account owner will face a problem if he loses these two parameters. This is what happens in situations where, for example, a girl says that she forgot her mail password. Such a problem, unfortunately, is not unique or rare, and even guys suffer from it.
Reliability of protection
Of course, a simpler procedure could be provided for recovering user data. For example, as it was before - a code word. When registering, the account owner was asked for a secret word (for example, mother's maiden name). After that, if the owner forgot the mail password, he didn’t know what to do, on the site he was asked the same question with a request to indicate the same word. If the answers matched, the password was reset, and the person got into the account.
In fact, this mechanism still works on less secure services. True, it cannot be called reliable - those who specialize in hacking other people's pages have long been practicing the procedure for selecting secret words, so the most advanced sites have long abandoned this recovery option. They were replaced by other methods - this is alternative mail or SMS.
Multiple connected devices
A good option for how to recover your username and password,is also the connection of several devices to your account at once. For example, if you have a smartphone, tablet, and home computer that you regularly use to access your mail, it will not be difficult for you to regain access.
Let's say that when you logged in from your computer, you accidentally logged out of your account and, of course, forgot its data. The way out is easy to find: from another connected gadget (on which you are still in the mail), you can see the login, and then, using the settings and the password change form, reset it again. True, in order to change, you will first need to guess it. If you're already logged in, you'll have more attempts to log in (at least that's how Gmail works). And if you sort out passwords “outside” the service, you will quickly get blocked by IP address. So be careful.
Restoring login
What to do if you are not in the account you are interested in, and, in addition, you also forgot your login? First you need to clarify whether you have any auxiliary reminder and recovery tools available. For example, did you provide your phone number or alternative email address. If yes, then there should be no problems: the login with which the account was created can be restored through one of the indicated methods. Then, starting from the username, you can try to remember the one that forgot the password from the mail.
If you did not use any bindings, and the service simply cannot identify your secondaddress, no phone number, then the only means of recovery is your memory. It is with its help that you can try to remember the addresses of people or organizations with which you contacted, and ask them to write you your login (it looks like [email protected]).
Another way is to try to remember your email through third-party services. This option also has the right to exist, however, if you are logged into some social network, for example. If you used one mailbox, you can go to the settings page in that network and see what address is registered there.
Recover password
The situation is completely different if, for example, a girl has forgotten her mail password. In fact, she has a login in her hands, but there is no way to log into the account under it. What to do in this case?
Very easy! To begin with, we are trying to use, again, the binding. This can be an SMS with a password sent to a phone number, or a letter to reset the access key, which will be sent to your second mailing address. If these options are not available, you can try to recover the password using the secret word mentioned above (Gmail email does not practice this, but it still works on Yandex). True, for this you will need to remember such a word.
The last, most desperate way is just trying to guess the password, sorting through all possible options.
How to prevent loss
Although all services havea special form for password recovery and login, but nevertheless, in some cases, even they cannot help. As a result, mail, login, whose password was forgotten, is simply lost, and all contacts disappear with it.
Therefore, in order to prevent this, we recommend using the means to recover your confidential information provided by postal services. And this, as you already know: an indication of an alternative mailbox, phone number, secret question. There is another elementary method - the banal saving of your data somewhere on your computer in electronic format or simply fixing it on paper in a notebook. And then you will be sure that you will not lose access to your mailbox if it is really important to you.
