If you’ve already followed the steps to recover your account, you may see a message that your account is protected by a security hold. This is a delay between when a request to recover your account is made and when the account recovery claim is processed. If there’s something unusual about your recovery request, this delay helps protect your account.
Tip: If you're signed in on a different device than the one you're using for account recovery, try recovering your account again using the device you're signed in on.
How a delay helps protect your account
During this delay, we use your recovery info and other info you’ve provided to notify you that an account recovery request has been made. That way, if someone else is trying to access your account, you have time to deny the request and secure your account.
How long your account recovery request is delayed
Account recovery requests can be delayed for a few hours or a number of days, depending on a variety of risk factors. For example, if you added more security to your account by setting up 2-Step Verification, your account recovery request might be delayed for longer.
Tip: If you get access to another way to verify it’s you during the delay, like a device where you normally sign in, you can follow the steps to recover your account again. That way, you might have a better chance of recovering the account or recovering it faster.
Avoid future account recovery delays
You can help make sure it’s easy to access your account by staying signed in, adding recovery info and keeping your recovery info current. If you use Two-Step Verification, you can add backups to give you more ways to verify it’s you.
Learn more about how to avoid getting locked out of your Google Account.
Get step-by-step visual guides on the tools and practices that will help you protect your personal information with Google's Online Security Guidebook.
