A recovery contact is someone you trust who can help you get back into your account if you’re ever locked out — it takes a few minutes to set up and can be the difference between losing an account forever and getting back in.
What you need
- The account your photo backup lives in
- A trusted person’s phone number or email, with their agreement
- A few minutes in the account’s security settings
How this differs from two-factor authentication
This is separate from two-factor authentication: two-factor authentication stops other people getting in, while a recovery contact helps you specifically get back in if you’re ever locked out yourself.
How to set a recovery contact
- Check whether your provider offers this feature. Apple offers Account Recovery Contacts under Settings > your name > Sign-In & Security. Google’s equivalent is a recovery phone number and email rather than a named person, set under myaccount.google.com > Security.
- Ask someone you trust before adding them. A recovery contact will be able to help verify it’s really you if you’re locked out, so pick someone reliable and let them know what they’ve agreed to.
- Add them following your provider’s steps. For Apple, this is a direct in-app invitation. For Google, make sure your recovery phone number and recovery email are current and belong to people or devices you can actually still access.
- Keep the details current. If your recovery contact changes their phone number, or you lose access to a recovery email, update it — a stale recovery contact is no better than none.
- Write down, separately, how the recovery process actually works. Note down (outside the account itself, since you might be locked out of it) roughly what steps your provider says you’d need to take, so you’re not learning the process for the first time during a stressful lockout.
Check the contact is actually set
Open your account’s security settings and confirm a recovery contact, phone number, or email is listed and current. If you can see it there and it’s accurate, it’s set up.
If your provider doesn’t offer this
If your provider doesn’t offer a named recovery contact feature, focus on keeping your recovery phone number and email current instead, since that’s the underlying mechanism most services use either way.
Next step
Recovery contacts matter most for accounts you can’t afford to lose — pair this with a second, independent photo copy so you’re not relying on account access alone. See Keep a second, independent copy of your most irreplaceable photos.
Sources and date checked
Based on Apple’s and Google’s own published account-recovery documentation. Checked 22 September 2026.