GitHub Account Recovery Policy

Code of Conduct

• I have read and agree to the GitHub Docs project's Code of Conduct

What article on docs.github.com is affected?

https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/other-site-policies/github-account-recovery-policy

What part(s) of the article would you like to see updated?

Can I open a support ticket to recover my account?

For security reasons, GitHub Support will not restore access to accounts with two-factor authentication enabled if you lose your two-factor authentication credentials or lose access to your account recovery methods.

It is written here that GitHub Support will not restore access to your account if you lose your two-factor authentication credentials or lose access to your account recovery methods. But there is no explanation given that if you forget your password but have access to your two-factor authentication credentials and github recovery codes, can you restore your account or not?

Additional information

No response

[welcome]

Thanks for opening this issue. A GitHub docs team member should be by to give feedback soon. In the meantime, please check out the contributing guidelines.

[Sharra-writes]

Sorry, site policy docs are under the management of our legal team and we can't make changes. The best I can do is suggest they attempt to clarify, but whether they do it is entirely up to them. I also can't answer your question here, but the support team would be in a better position to give you an answer.

Hi @Sharra-writes , Thank you for your attention. To recover the account, there is a form that needs to be filled out.

But when I contacted GitHub support, they said that it is not possible to recover the account if you forget the password.

I'm afraid that the 2FA credentials you may have are only valid as the second factor of authentication. For security reasons, they cannot (in any way) interact with the first factor of authentication; which would be the account password or, if lost, the account's primary email address for a password reset.

Please clarify the GitHub documentation. If a user forgets the password but has access to GitHub recovery codes and 2FA, can he/she recover the account?

[Sharra-writes]

@PersonofInterest I'm sorry if you're having trouble with account recovery. Based on that reply, it sounds like support can't recover a 2FA account without the password, but I certainly don't have more insight than the support team. Unfortunately, again, Legal owns site policy docs, not the docs team. All I can do is tell them that a user found the policy unclear, link to this issue, and suggest they look at updating it. Whether they do is up to them.

All I can do is tell them that a user found the policy unclear, link to this issue, and suggest they look at updating it. Whether they do is up to them.

@Sharra-writes I appreciate your work and thank you for your effort. I hope I can recover my account.

I've created another ticket for GitHub support and and they responded that:

Hello there,

Thanks for writing in to GitHub Support. It sounds like you're having trouble accessing an account with two-factor authentication ('2FA') enabled.

GitHub Support is unable to help with requests related to recovering access to an account with two-factor authentication enabled. This approach is designed to protect GitHub accounts from unauthorized access and to minimize the risk that GitHub staff are socially engineered into providing access to (or information about) an account that is protected by 2FA.

Regards,
Tom

@Sharra-writes What to do?

[Sharra-writes]

@PersonofInterest I talked to my manager, and she suggested opening an issue in site-policy docs. This is the open source repo for site policy and may have contributors more knowledgeable about your specific problem.

@Sharra-writes Thank you for your suggestion. I see no point to create this issue because I'm new here and my problem probably may be ignored. May I request you to create this issue in site-policy docs?

[Sharra-writes]

@PersonofInterest We ask all contributors to open their own issues when proposing specific updates or improvements to the documentation. When you open your own issue, it ensures that your feedback is directly attributed to you, enabling better follow-up and communication if additional details or clarifications are needed. This maintains transparency and accountability in the collaborative review process.

If you decide to open an issue, please feel free to reference this discussion for context.

@Sharra-writes I prefer to leave GitHub for good. My ticket has not been answered for over two weeks.
I raised the issue there but no support answered it. Creating a new issue is pointless and a waste of time.