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About six years ago, I changed the password to a secondary email account I had and promptly forgot it. I mostly used that email address for junk, but it was connected to some accounts that I either still used or wanted to delete. Over the past several years, I have tried every password I could think of or find scribbled on a scrap of paper somewhere. I attempted account recovery, then advanced account recovery (where a human reviews all the information I can give them about the account). When I got a job at the company that runs this email service, I tried the internal account recovery method twice, but still was not able to convince them that it was my account.

A few weeks ago, I tried a new writing exercise. I got an old, empty notebook and started writing. I turned the page, and there it was written: the username and password to this account.

Sometimes answers appear in unexpected places. I hope you figure out your password.

Just gave me flashbacks to when I forget my debit card pin.

it was a pin I’d used for years, used it multiple times a week if not every single day

Then one day I went to the cash point and just blanked. Lost it entirely. Poof.

Had to go through the hoops of requesting a new pin and I wasn’t able to get any money out at the time.

Wasn’t really a big deal at all…. But I totally get that weirdness of just banking on something that you had used so many times before without issue. Freaked me out for a while about how my brain could have just randomly deleted that bit of information that had seemed so solid before.

I’m not trying to compare my little inconvenience to your situation but just that you aren’t alone in the camp of suddenly forgetting a password that you’d known for ages.