Whether lost access comes back
The statement: I lost access, can I get it back. It depends entirely on what you lost, and the four common cases have almost nothing in common.
Bucket: DEPENDS
It depends on whether what you lost was something the operator holds, something only you held, or something that never existed anywhere but in your memory.
The four cases
| What was lost | Who could restore it |
|---|---|
| A site password | The operator, if they built a way and you can satisfy it |
| A second factor or PGP login key | Nobody, unless a recovery route was set up in advance |
| A wallet recovery phrase | Nobody. The wallet is the phrase |
| A device with all of the above on it | Depends on what was backed up before the loss |
The pattern is that recovery is a feature that had to exist before you needed it. Nothing can be added afterwards.
Why anonymity removes the usual route
On ordinary services, recovery works by proving you are the person named on the account, using an email address or a phone number. Those identifiers are exactly what an anonymous account does not have. Remove them and there is nothing to prove against.
A mnemonic or recovery code issued at signup is the replacement, and it works only if you kept it. That is the trade for not being asked who you are.
What people get wrong
They assume a person can be persuaded. Sometimes a real operator can help with a real password reset if a route exists. But the persuasion is not the mechanism, the route is, and if there is no route then no amount of correspondence creates one.
They also confuse the cases. Losing a password is a support question with a possible answer. Losing a wallet phrase is not a support question at all, because no support in existence has any relationship to your wallet.
Why operators are cautious about resets
Because a reset route is also a takeover route. Any process that lets somebody who lost a password back in is a process somebody else can attempt against your account. The more generous the route, the more useful it is to a stranger.
So a reluctance to help is not necessarily indifference. It can be the same policy that stops your account being handed to somebody claiming to be you. Both readings are available and you cannot tell which you are seeing.
The dangerous window
Being locked out is the state in which people accept help from anywhere. That is the specific moment the support page and the recovery phrase page are written about, and both of those are NEVER rather than DEPENDS.
A locked account is a bad reason to lower a standard you would keep on any other day.
What to do before
Write down what was issued at signup, keep it away from the device, and know which of the four categories each of your credentials falls into. The categorisation takes five minutes once and it decides everything about what happens later.
Questions people actually ask
I lost my password, can it be reset?
Only if the operator built a route and you can satisfy it. That route had to exist before you needed it.
I lost my wallet recovery phrase, what now?
Nothing. The phrase is the wallet. No support anywhere has any relationship to it.