How do you find out the date your Gmail account was created - important to know!

Even if you have recovery email setup, recovery phone number setup, etc. Google may expect you to know the exact date your Gmail account was created (!) in order to allow you access to your own Gmail account whenever they feel like additional steps are needed to access your account, for example if you don't log in for a certain period of time, you travel to another location, etc.

How do you find out Gmail Creation Date if this does not work:

• First 'welcome to Gmail' email is no longer in your Gmail.

• Some Gmail accounts have this date, but some do not:
Gmail gear icon (settings) > Forwarding and POP/IMAP > POP is enabled for all mail that has arrived since [date Gmail was created]

• Google Takeout Archive trick no longer works.


Very interesting issue, because Google expects you to know this information. This question is for users that have full access to their Gmail account yet cannot find the account creation date they may need in the future to access their Gmail if Google asks them this question.

I have a test Gmail account that cannot be accessed even though I have ALL the info. Password. Recovery email. Everything.
It asks for the Gmail creation date.
This is how I discovered the importance of having this date, but that account is not important - my question is how do you find out Gmail creation date on other Gmail accounts where you do have FULL ACCESS...?

I still have my "welcome" email. Your "POP is enabled since" worked for me on an account that was created in 2005.

Yes I also have a Gmail account with all that info too.
Thread question is about Gmail accounts that do not have their welcome Gmail, and do not display "POP is enabled since" date.
I have a second Gmail account that does not. And about half the people I asked they don't have it either, the other half does.

Gmail official help had one of their experts post an answer - a link to a thread where people post of having their Gmail accounts for more than a decade and being permanently locked out of their Gmail because they do not know their Gmail acct creation date.

But that thread had no answer so I think they just posted that because they don't like to see a question have zero answers so they post anything, even if it's not the answer, just so that a thread doesn't have zero replies, don't you love it when forum leaders do that?
The only thing I could say is that my question is very different.

It is about finding out Gmail creation date while you still have FULL ACCESS to your Gmail.
I posted, I think correctly, that there is no more important question on the entire Google Gmail forum.

If you do not know your Gmail acct creation date - you may find your self permanently locked out of Gmail at any time for any reason because you think having your correct password, recovery email/phone is enough. It is not.
The thread they linked to just further proved that:
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/gmail/dTlr4KVRFIA


My favorite quote from a Gmail user there:
"I can't speak for other people, but signing up an email account is not a momentous event nor it is like a birthday party to mark it in my calendar. I even can't remember what year is it, because my gmail account I signed up is when gmail was still new and marked as beta..."

Two expert replies at official Gmail forums now confirm that THERE IS NO WAY for everyone to find out their Gmail acct creation date.

Without knowing your Gmail creation date you WILL lose your Gmail.
You may wonder why I used the word 'will' instead of 'may' - it's because ten minutes ago it happened to ME!!!

So I am posting about this at official Gmail forums and in the middle of the thread this very thing happens.
I had full access. I wanted to find out my Gmail acct creation date so I don't lose access. I can't find out the date, I get locked out because I simply tried to access my Gmail from a friend's house - security restrictions are triggered if you try to access your Gmail from an 'unusual place' - and for Google that means your friend's house.

I have accessed my gmail account from different devices and different locations any number of times and have never been asked this question by google. I do always get an email informing me that "you or someone else has accessed your account from another location. If this was not you, please contact google" or something like that. They have never asked me any security questions. Is this a new policy or something?

Gmail has a huge number of users. If something applies to half or a third of the user base, that number is still huge.
I believe it is a new thing that Gmail started asking users when their account was created.
This information is not listed for ANYONE.

I have discovered that some but not all users can get around this if they:
• Have their welcome to Gmail email.
• Gmail gear icon (settings) > Forwarding and POP/IMAP > POP is enabled for all mail that has arrived since [date Gmail was created]
• Your signing in icon > My account > Signing in to Google > Password: last changed: [this date may be the account creation date if password was not changed since creation]

THAT'S IT.

Account creation date is not listed anywhere and guess what, saying the above things to people who have none of the three is not an answer.
I have Gmail accounts that list none of the three above, I've seen others which do not either.
WHY is Google not listing account creation date yet it is asking for it.

So then
People who have one or two or all three items above do not see this as a problem because they can then get around it.
People who are asked an ADDITIONAL question do not see this as a problem because they don't need it.

I am trying to replicate a situation where account creation date and ONLY account creation date gets you in, because I personally witnessed it once and next time I will take video as proof because Google experts are acknowledging that ACCOUNT CREATION DATE is listed nowhere but are counter-arguing that this is not the only question that Gmail asks.
And I cannot continue my conversation with them without proof.

Although they successfully got me off the subject that Google is asking for something that is listed NOWHERE on Gmail, which really is the point that allows Google to shut down Gmail accounts by asking them this question, which is NOT listed anywhere.

So what do you think there motive is for this?

I wish a member of the press would ask Google why are they asking a question that is listed nowhere when you do have full access.

Is it to have an excuse to shut their account down?

Think about this. There are two options. Incompetence (Google does not realize that people have NO WAY of knowing the answer to that "security question").
Or on purpose. (Google knows full well that people have NO WAY of knowing the answer to that "security question")

Both options are disturbing. Apparently people don't think this is a big deal.
But this is easy to understand if you flip this. Think of *your* main email account where you have all your most important messages.
Think of hearing that people using the same email provider are being asked an obscure question that is UNOBTAINABLE under any circumstances... to you... while you still have access.

How would that not be a huge deal to you, how is that not computer-news worthy?

But it seems illogical to me that Google would do something that would alienate their customer base on purpose.

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

Alienating customer base of course is not their goal.
We can speculate on reasons sure. But these are just speculations.

1. They ask an unanswerable question because they "don't know" that Gmail does not list this information anywhere?
Let's be reasonable, this would require a level of incompetency that just doesn't make sense. So that's not why, per our speculation.

2. Why would Google want to have an option to close a Gmail account legally, with a rock-proof excuse of "it's for your own protection"?
Why would they want to force you to re-register for a new one?
Again, nothing but speculation remains.

Historically, dictatorship government bureaucracies held files on everyone so that they had the option, if need be, to pull those files and use them against the person for whatever reason.
Is this applied to accounts which are not frequently used to send out email? Is this applied to accounts which were created so long ago, different terms of service applied? Are there rules that apply to new accounts that didn't apply to old accounts. Is this related to a new Gmail popup asking you to accept NEW INNOCENT LOOKING CHANGES where Gmails users are given two options Accept or More Options. Not Accept/Decline - but Accept / More Options and when you click on More Options you are given three more confusing options only one of which is the one that I click on which KEEPS THINGS AS THEY ARE without allowing Google to implement the new innocent looking changes in the way they handle accounts, which may be perfectly reasonable and there's nothing to it, but what if you decline and then all of a sudden you are asked a NEW security question about when your account was created and if you don't know (because you can't know because it's not listed) you are then forced to create a new Gmail account which COMES with NEW INNOCENT LOOKING changes from the get go.

Again huge speculations, that are not based in fact - just circumstances.

I've said this before, people are all up in arms against Microsoft which is in an elementary child stage when it comes to privacy concerns in comparison to Google - true internet masters of taking privacy concerns to the limits of legality.

So in speculating you are suggesting that Google might be in bed with the government? Or were you just using parallel reasoning here?

Parallel reasoning.
The option to ask for Gmail account creation date is a tool to shut down a certain Gmail account because that information is not listed anywhere in Gmail, and Google knows that.
This has nothing to do with the Government.

I have two gmail accounts. One I have had for several years and the start date is found under the POP settings. The other, newer account was never set up for forwarding and so the POP settings have not been used. I cannot find the start date anywhere else in that newer account.

Found this, pretty interesting read: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/gmail/_uvubJJoWHg/z9lC28zICAAJ

Sounds like it is a frustration for the google tech support team as well.

wrong thread...

JLK03F150 said:

wrong thread...

Click to expand...

Maybe. But the indians can't always be held responsible for what the chiefs decide. All of us know that who have been employed by someone else. The indians have to live with it. Sorry for the politically incorrect reference.

I wasn't responding to your post, trents. I posted in the wrong thread, then did a ninja edit. lol I've opened your link, but haven't read it yet.

Sorry, I took that the wrong way.

C6, this is absolutely a large issue and one that hit home to me a couple years ago when I wanted to recover my Xbox live account information. Unfortunately the email address for that account was still somehow my old Gmail address that I had closed because it kept spamming people. I wanted to recover the account so I could access the account recovery email. Impossible without having the account creation date, which I had created during the early beta phase from an invite. I had no idea what that date was (or knew that I would need it for any reason until it was too late).

ive been tring to recover my main email after i changed the password one night after my fiancé broke up with me for some1 else then i forgot wat i changed it to the next day i got it back by using my laptop and it had my email pulled up so i was able to get the recovery email i did this on 3 of my emails ea for a diff job i have so they r all business emails with important information and they have the clients contact information and so i was on 3 gmails on my laptop all opened and used my fone to change the passwords by viewing the new email notification but if i clicked on the email it would ask to log in so all i had lol but anyways 2 of them i got back in january 100% with a estimated creation date by oldest email i have that is from google lol but the main 1 has problems recovering it cause u all know how it is it asks last password u remember so i put in the 1 it was b4 i changed it the first time also on this account i lucked out and guessed the password when i desided to get to the same lvl of drunk to remember it and i got it but i even wrote the new 1 down but i lost the paper like usual lol but anyways so the 2nd question is for the fone number attached to the account then u gotta enter the 6 digit code then the 3rd question is the recovery email which is 100% correct except that google decided to add a 2nd .com so it says
@gmail.com.com ive asked of google tp plz delete one of the .com's but they said no they cant cause they cant grant verification that its my account i replied back sayong so taking a .com out to make it a valid email address which u have to have a valid email for a recovery email but nope nothing they said sry but theres nothing we can do to help u then the 4th os creation date its only a month and yr and i think i know the yr and the season so im just gana start guessing but its been 6 months now that ive been researching this cause i dont have a computer anymore if i did i woulda recovered it back in jan also cuz i had to hack into my other 2 and get all the info i needed to change one then the other1 followed thats easy to do but now im lost besides just guessing but im scared thatll completely lock my account since the recovery email is stupid glitched