Almost all of us use the standard set of tools on the Internet: social networks, various instant messengers for informal communication and mail for correspondence in a more business format.
True, as a rule, they spend more time in networks than in a mailbox (objectively, because there is a lot of information there). And it so happened that remembering the username and password from VKontakte is easier for us than from the mailbox, for example, on the Rambler, which we visit once a week. “What should I do if I forgot the password for the mail?” and many other similar questions are asked by ordinary users. The answer to them (and not only) we will give in this article.
The principle of operation of the authorization system
So, let's start with a general description of how the user is authorized on the mail server. In order to enter, you are asked to specify a username and password. Login is a user identifier, which, as a rule, consists of letters and numbers, and is unique. He is also rightly 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. With their introduction, a person can log into the account and, thus, gain access to all the information inside it. Accordingly, the account owner will encounter a problem if he loses these two parameters. This happens in situations where, for example, a girl says that she forgot the password from the mail. Such a problem, unfortunately, is not unique or rare, and guys suffer from it.
Security 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 did not know what to do, the site asked him the same question with a request to indicate the same word. If the answers match, the password is reset, and the person gets into the account.
In fact, such a mechanism still operates 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 since given up this recovery option. They were replaced by other methods - this is alternative mail or SMS.
Multiple Connected Devices
A good option for recovering your username and password is also to connect several devices to your account at once. For example, if you have a smartphone, tablet and home computer with which you regularly visit your mail, it will not be difficult to restore access to you.
Say, when you log in from a 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 form for changing the password, reset it again. True, in order to change, you will first need to guess it. If you are already logged in, then you have more attempts on this (at least, this is how Gmail email works). And if you go through the passwords “outside” the service, you will quickly get a lock on the IP address. So be careful.
Recover login
What to do if you are not in the account you are interested in and, in addition to this, have also forgotten your username? 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 mail address. If so, then there should not be any 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 second address or phone number, then your memory remains the only way to restore it. It is with its help that you can try to remember the addresses of the people or organizations with which you contacted and ask them to write your username (it looks like login@site.com).
Another way is to try to remember your email through third-party services. This option also has a right to exist, however, if you are logged in to some social network, for example. If you used one mailbox, you can go to the settings page in such a network and see what address is registered there.
Recover password
The situation is completely different if, for example, a girl forgot a password from the mail. In fact, she has a login in her hands, but there is no way to log into her account under it. How to be in this case?
Very simple! To begin with, we try to use, again, 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 above-mentioned secret word (Gmail does not practice this, but it still works on Yandex). True, for this it will be necessary to recall such a word.
The last, most desperate way is just an attempt to find a password, sorting through all the possible options.
How to prevent loss
Although all services have a special form of password and login recovery, nevertheless, in some cases, even they cannot help. As a result of this, the mail, the login whose password has been forgotten, is simply lost, and all contacts disappear with it.
Therefore, in order to prevent this, we recommend using the means to restore your confidential information provided by postal services. And this, as you already know: an alternative mailbox, phone number, security question. There is another elementary method - the banal saving of your data somewhere on your computer in electronic format or just fixing it on paper in a notebook. And then you will be sure that you will not lose access to the mailbox, if it is really important to you.