Blogs on Gmail and Google Accounts

The Gmail Activity Information (formerly known as the Gmail Last Account Activity) window presents the easiest way to check for unauthorized account access or suspicious activities within Gmail. One can access that window by clicking on the Details link below the Last account activity link at the bottom-right of the Gmail Inbox page in the Gmail standard web UI. Note: In certain inbox layouts, such as Unread First with the Preview pane enabled and a conversation selected, you may not see the Details link. In that case, simply reload the page to see that option in the preview pane. The window includes the last ten entries when your Gmail was accessed using web browsers, POP/IMAP email clients, Gmail or third-party mobile apps, any other Google apps, etc. and lists the IP address that accessed your email, the associated location, as well as the time and date. As shown, some of the entries will have a “Show details” link next to them to display additional information when clicked upon. A

One of the common questions that get asked in Gmail and the Google Accounts Help Communities is about ways to keep Google Accounts secure. Knowing what to do when one suspects things can help better manage those situations and initiate the necessary actions to mitigate any imminent threats.  The easiest way to check for unauthorized account access/suspicious activity is to click on the Details link below the Last account activity link at the bottom of the Gmail Inbox page. It includes any time that your email was accessed using a regular web browser, a POP client, a mobile device, etc. and lists the IP address that accessed your email, the associated location, as well as the time and date. If you find any suspicious IP addresses that may have been used to compromise your account (use a reverse IP lookup such as the  https://whatismyipaddress.com/ip-lookup  or  http://ip-lookup.net ) to acquire more details about the IP and confirm that it is (or not) something suspicious.  I have writt

In spite of the growing popularity of social media and messaging apps, Emails still retain their importance. We use it for all official and otherwise important and formal correspondences, all our important reports - medical, financial, professional get delivered to it, and if it is a Gmail address, then it also ties everything to its Google account, where you would typically have all your valuable documents stored and invaluable photos saved. Now imagine losing access to all of those, suddenly, over something you casually overlooked or were previously cavalier about. There are various ways one can lose access to their Google account. Some are more ubiquitous than others, so there is a very strong argument about better understanding what needs to be done to be able to keep your Google account accessible all the time. It is important to remember that this is NOT a blog on account recovery. There are several of them around (my favourite being this one ) and it is pointless to add one mor

Google Account Security has been central to many of the things I have been doing of late so it was a no-brainer when it came to picking a topic to write an article for the Cyber-security awareness month. Knowledge about your Google Account’s security is important as it helps you to understand how it works and also for the fact that it is the user's responsibility to ensure the security of their Google accounts. Presently, Google offers four (4) levels of account security on their accounts and this article presents an overview of the details of those four levels and explains how you can best decide on the level of security you require for your account and ways to manage the various security options.  This understanding of the security levels is also very important from the account recovery perspective as the Google user-verification system looks to verify user ownership beyond all reasonable doubts using the most secure process based on the highest security level enabled on that acc