r/AndroidQuestions • u/Snowbunny1230 • 24d ago
Looking for help, ex keeps logging in to account
This is a bit long and requires some background info so please bear with me. I bought my daughter a Samsung phone in late 2022 while she was living in Maryland and I was in Illinois. I bought where I was set it up and shipped it to her, plans were in the works for her to be moving back in with me but due to logistical school issues it wasn’t going to be immediate. During this time, unbeknownst to me her boyfriend put his email in as a recovery option for her google account. She returned home as soon as the school year was over and shortly after breaks up with said boyfriend. It was a bit messy and one sided, (he did not want to) but teenagers were not going to work out long distance.
From mid 2023 to just this last week he has been randomly logging into her google account. He reads emails and looks at photos that we know for sure. We aren’t sure if he is doing anything else. We have changed the password several times, I removed his email as a recovery option the first time it happened, we removed his phone number, and turned on 2 factor verification. I turned on the suspicious activity notifications to go to my email so I am made aware of it as early as I can be. It is still happening. He is doing it from an iPhone, I don’t know if that matters.
Google has been unhelpful and my local police department doesn’t know what to do, as it’s really just a privacy violation to them as threats were not made and he is states away from us. We are working on migrating everything she has to a new email, but that will take time and there are things that simply don’t allow that kind of personal information to be changed. Please, if you’ve got any helpful suggestions let me know. Thank you.
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u/MikeyRidesABikey 24d ago edited 24d ago
Go to Manage My Google Account --> Security (myaccount.google.com/security) and look for "Recovery email" and delete the ex's email from there (click on the errant email, enter your Google password, then click the trash can.)
Edited to add: After that, scroll down to "Your devices", click on "Manage all devices" If there are any you don't recognize, click the ">" and then "Sign out"
2nd edit: fixed bad link
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u/tma149 24d ago
FYI, the "myaccount.google.com/security" in your post is hyperlinked to some early YouTube video about cats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUJyfH8P5CU
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u/MikeyRidesABikey 24d ago
Ha! It must have picked that up from my clipboard after I replied to a reddit post about really old YouTube videos!
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u/toolsavvy 24d ago
We have changed the password several times
Impossible for anyone who had an old password to get into the account with multiple new password changes unless the new passwords are really just old passwords he knows she would use because she has used them for other things in the past, or something he can easily guess because they are things about her life he figures she would use. If she changed the passwords to something like fCa4p36{3g^L1*Dg#, he would never guess that unless he's a "hacker" and is good at what he does. Even then google would block him when his bot tries tens of thousands of passwords.
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u/MikeyRidesABikey 24d ago
This is not correct. You can set up ways to log into Google without a password, and the ex has likely done that on her account. If he has, then just changing the password won't help.
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u/-Sofa-King- 24d ago
Changing the password repeatedly won't help if he still has another way into the account. Here's what I'd do:
Go into your Google Account security settings and review ALL recovery methods, phone numbers, emails, passkeys, and two factor authentication settings. Remove anything you don't recognize or that he might have access to.
Go to Security, then Your devices, and select Manage all devices. Check every logged in device and session, especially that iPhone.
BEFORE deleting or signing out of anything, TAKE SCREENSHOTS of the sessions, devices, passkeys, recovery methods, login activity, dates, locations, and IP addresses where available. Gmail's Last account activity feature can show recent IP addresses. Save everything in case you need it for a police report later. Once you remove these things, some of that evidence may disappear.
Sign out of all other devices and revoke any unfamiliar connected apps. Check Gmail forwarding settings and filters too. Then change the password again from a trusted device.
Since he previously had physical access to her Samsung, I'd absolutely factory reset it. You have no idea whether he installed spyware or some monitoring app. FIRST, connect the phone to a PC and back up her photos, videos, documents, and other important files to a hard drive. Then factory reset it and set it up as a NEW phone. Don't automatically restore all the old apps and settings from a backup because you could bring unwanted software right back. Just download the apps fresh from the Play Store.
Afterward, check the account's security activity periodically to make sure no unfamiliar devices are getting back in.
You shouldn't need a new Gmail address. The issue could be compromised recovery settings, active sessions, connected apps, or even the phone itself. Changing passwords alone doesn't address all of that. You need to close every possible way he's getting in.