In short
A guardian is somebody you name who is told when a recovery of your account begins. Naming one takes a moment and is worth doing, because it turns a silent attempt on your account into one that somebody else knows about.
What surprises almost everybody is what a guardian is not. They do not approve anything. They are not asked to confirm that the recovery is really you. They never receive the code — that goes only to your own address, always. A guardian holds no part of the key, which is precisely the point: naming one adds a witness to your account without adding a second way into it. If your guardian’s email were broken into tomorrow, that alone would give the intruder nothing.
On this page
What a guardian is
A guardian is a single contact recorded against your account. When somebody starts the process of recovering your account, that contact is sent a short message saying so.
That is the entire feature. It is an alarm bell, not a lock.
What a guardian is not
| People often assume | Actually |
|---|---|
| They approve the recovery | They are asked for nothing. Recovery proceeds whether or not they respond |
| They receive the code | The code goes only to the account’s own address, never to them |
| They hold a spare key | They hold nothing at all |
| They can start a recovery for you | They cannot. Naming somebody gives them no powers over your account |
| They can see your account | They cannot see anything |
Why it is built this way
Every additional person who can approve something is an additional person who can be tricked, pressured or broken into. A guardian who could authorize a recovery would be a second front door, and front doors are what attackers look for.
By giving the guardian no authority and no secrets, the design gets the useful half of the idea without the dangerous half. The useful half is that an attempt on your account cannot happen quietly. The dangerous half — another route in — is simply never created.
What your guardian receives
A short email saying that a recovery of your account has begun, and that they are listed as your recovery guardian. The message states plainly that it is a heads-up only, that it carries no codes, and that a legitimate recovery needs nothing from them.
That last line is written for their benefit as much as yours. It means a guardian who receives one of these cannot be talked into believing they must do something, which closes off the obvious way of manipulating them.
The notice is sent when an attempt starts. Treat it as an early warning rather than a running commentary — it is not a report on how the recovery went.
Give them an email address
You can record an email address, a phone number, or both. The alert is sent by email. If you record only a phone number, your guardian will never actually hear about anything — the number is stored, but nothing is sent to it.
Recording a phone number and no email produces a guardian in name only. If you record just one thing, make it the email address.
Choosing one
Because a guardian has no powers, the qualities that matter are different from the ones people expect. You are not choosing somebody trustworthy enough to hold a key — there is no key. You are choosing somebody who will notice.
- Someone who reads their email. An alert nobody opens is no alert
- Someone reachable by another route. If they can call you, the warning becomes useful within minutes
- Someone whose account is not tangled with yours. A shared family address is weaker, because whatever reaches your inbox may reach theirs
- Someone who will still be reachable in two years. This is a setting people forget they made
What a guardian should do
If you are somebody’s guardian and one of these arrives, there is exactly one useful action: contact the person directly, by a route that is not email, and ask whether it was them.
If it was, nothing more is needed. If it was not, they should be told at once so they can secure the account and revoke their Recovery Mark. There is nothing for you to click, approve, forward or reply to, and any message that asks you to do one of those things did not come from the platform.
What your guardian’s details are used for
The address is used for this one purpose. It is not added to your contacts, not visible to anyone else, and not shown back in your own settings — when you look, you are told only whether an email and a phone number are on file, not what they are.
That means if you cannot remember who you named, you cannot look it up. Make a note somewhere separate when you set it.
Symptoms, causes and fixes
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| My guardian was not told | Only a phone number is on file | Add their email address |
| Settings will not show me who my guardian is | Only whether one is set is reported back | Re-enter the address you intend to use |
| My guardian wants to approve the recovery | There is nothing to approve | Carry on. Recovery does not wait for them |
| A guardian email arrived and it was not me | Somebody is attempting your account | Sign in, change your password, revoke your Recovery Mark and issue a new one |
| My guardian was asked to click something | The genuine notice asks for nothing | Treat that message as an attack and do not act on it |
| Naming a guardian did not speed up recovery | It is not part of the recovery path | A Recovery Mark is what makes recovery fast |
Things people commonly get wrong
Related reading: Your Recovery Mark, Recovering your account after losing your device, and Your devices.