Tech Tips: Locked out of Email

Recently, we had a visitor to our office who reported that photos and videos needed to be backed up and removed off their phone to create space for receiving email. This valued customer’s email hadn’t been working for weeks as messages were popping up that the phone was too full. An initial approach of backing up photos and videos and freeing up space on the phone led us down the path of something more challenging.

Upon starting the work, we quickly found that the iPhone and iCloud account had over 80% space free and that something else was full, blocking the emails. After investigating further, we found that the Microsoft account, which was limited to 5 GB, had been 2 GB over used. This account being overfull also stopped the Hotmail email from receiving mail.

The next course of action was to use the Microsoft Outlook Desktop App to archive older emails to the user’s laptop. We hit a roadblock quickly as the user did not remember their Hotmail email password. It had been saved in their phone and computer for years. We were reluctant to reset the password as there was no alternate means of verification like cell phone number or alternate email. Without a backup phone number and email linked to the account, we risked the user being locked out indefinitely. This was quite a pickle to be in.

After consideration of options and obtaining consent from the owner of the account and laptop, we proceeded to scour the computer for any breadcrumbs that could lead us to decrypt the saved password. This process continued for some days without success. We hit the reset button on our process and investigated further. Luckily the saved email password was decrypted and the process to archive the old email commenced.

Now that we had the password, we also looked at another tool preinstalled in Windows, One Drive. It turns out that the Microsoft account had been linked to the One Drive app causing the computer to backup the photos and video files. Even with our archiving of the old emails, the Microsoft account strangely overfilled again. This One Drive app, unknowingly to us, transferred even more files from the laptop to the Internet, filling the account. We needed to stop this as the customer wasn’t in a position to upgrade to the paid version of the Microsoft account (which gives more cloud storage). Once the One Drive app was stopped we could free up space in the Microsoft account.

After looking back at this experience, there were several lessons learned. With our ever dependence on our email and apps to simplify our communications, how much will we be impacted if those platforms suddenly stop working for days, if not weeks? To put it plainly there is no ‘easy button’ to get back up running.

As highlighted above, there were multiple challenges to a seemingly simple problem:

(1) Email not working will stunt a small business with blocked orders, frustrated clients, and potentially locking one out of other online accounts.

(2) The loss of a password without a way to prove your identity to reset the password could lock someone out of a lifetime of email, and priceless photos and videos.

(3) Is there a family member in our lives who, heaven forbid, is becoming more forgetful and where passwords may not be written down?

(4) Lastly, could it be that all of this problem started with a cloud drive backup app that was meant to simply things.

Please take a moment to check in with those you love and ensure their email and cloud accounts have an alternate email or cell phone number added to the account – to save from such a headache in the future. Perhaps that password book under the home computer isn’t such a bad idea.