Mostly, if someone forgets account information, it is usually the password, and less commonly the username or email. But sometimes this can happen to many people working in tech due to handling multiple versatile accounts across different websites for relatively specific work.
For example, on a hosting platform or database platform, one can have two accounts — one for personal experiments and one for production or professional work.
In my case, I similarly had two accounts on a platform, and the Gmail ID used for one of them was very rarely used and not very active, due to which I forgot it completely. I also had no Google session logged in through which I could get the idea of the Gmail ID.
After a long time, the platform refreshed its session and required a new login, with no account suggestions available. Now I was trapped with no idea of the Gmail ID.
Neither the CLI of that platform was giving me my Gmail ID, nor any other command, etc. Since the email was the main identifier, the CLI was not revealing it. This could be due to several reasons:
- Either it had no such function,
- It was never required before,
- Or the command was never commonly used, making it difficult even for ChatGPT or other AI assistants to provide a solution.
At this point, I used my development knowledge and anticipated that most web apps use cookies and browser storage to store user or session-related information.
So, I went to the platform site, opened Inspect/Developer Tools, and checked:
- Application → Cookies
- Local Storage
- Session Storage
There, I found the same Gmail ID that I had used on the platform, allowing me to proceed and regain control of the account.
The purpose of sharing this troubleshooting method is to help contribute toward recovering lost account information using one's own device and one's own browser inspect tools.
However, such techniques and knowledge should never be used to copy, steal, or misuse someone else's session or account information from their devices.
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