Questions and answers

Peter, thank you — and that message is not Google being pushy. It is a leftover program on your PC still trying to run.

WHAT IT ACTUALLY IS

Google used to make a desktop program that copied photos off your computer. It was called Google Photos Backup, then Backup and Sync. Google retired it. The program is still sitting on your PC and still set to start with Windows, so every startup it wakes up, finds it has been switched off at Google's end, and tells you so.

Nothing is wrong with your photos. Nothing is wrong with your PC.

STOP IT APPEARING — TWO MINUTES

1. Right-click on the taskbar at the bottom of the screen and choose Task Manager.
2. Click "Startup apps" down the left. On Windows 10 it is a tab across the top called "Startup".
3. Look down the list for "Backup and Sync from Google". It may be listed as "Google Photos Backup".
4. Right-click it and choose Disable.
5. Restart the PC. The message should be gone.

THEN REMOVE IT PROPERLY

1. Start button, then Settings, then Apps, then Installed apps.
2. Find "Backup and Sync from Google" in the list.
3. Click the three dots beside it and choose Uninstall.

THE BIT PEOPLE WORRY ABOUT

Uninstalling removes only the program on your PC. Every photo already in Google Photos stays exactly where it is, and nothing on the computer is deleted. You are throwing away the delivery van, not the parcels.

If you do want the PC to keep sending photos up automatically, the replacement is called Google Drive for desktop, from google.com/drive/download. If you back up from your phone, or you do not back up from the PC at all, you need nothing.

ON YOUR PS — SENDING ME A PICTURE

You are right, and it is a good idea. The question box takes words only at the moment. I will add pictures to it, but not this week.

Until then, email the screen capture to web@compalsnb.org.au and I will match it up with your question.

I have answered above from the wording you quoted, which I am fairly confident of. If what is on your screen reads differently, send it over and I will look again.

Judy, here are the steps. Everything below is done on a computer, not the phone app.

Do this IN THE ACCOUNT THE MAIL ARRIVES AT — the one you want to send onwards.

1. Open that account in Gmail.
2. Click the cog at the top right, then "See all settings".
3. Choose the "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" tab.
4. Click "Add a forwarding address", type the address you want the mail to go to, then "Next", "Proceed", "OK".
5. Google now sends a code to the OTHER address. This is the step people get stuck on: you have to be able to open that other mailbox. Open the message there and click the link in it.
6. Come back to the first account, refresh the page, and go to "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" again.
7. Choose "Forward a copy of incoming mail to" and pick the address.
8. Now decide what happens to the original. Choose "Keep Gmail's copy in the Inbox". The other choices archive it or delete it, and deleting is how mail quietly goes missing.
9. Press "Save Changes" at the bottom. Nothing happens until you do.

IF YOU ONLY WANT SOME OF IT FORWARDED

Forwarding everything is often too blunt. To send on just one kind of message:

1. In the search box at the top, click "Show search options".
2. Fill in what you want to match — a sender, or a word in the subject.
3. Click "Search" first to check it catches the right things.
4. Click "Create filter", tick "Forward it", pick the address, then "Create filter" again.

The address still has to be verified at step 5 above before a filter can use it.

TO TURN IT OFF

Same tab, click "Disable forwarding", then "Save Changes".

ONE THING WORTH KNOWING FOR CLUB ADDRESSES

Forwarding a club address to a personal one is fine as a stopgap, and it is very useful when somebody is away. But it is worth leaving "Keep Gmail's copy in the Inbox" ticked, so the club's own record stays complete. If the copy only lands in a personal account, the next person in that role inherits an empty mailbox — and we would not know what had been promised on the club's behalf.

Ask me if any step reads differently on your screen. Google moves things.

Judy, you found the gap yourself, and it is now fixed.

When you asked this, there genuinely was nowhere to reply. The only box on the page was for starting a new request — so to say thank you, you had to file one. That was the fault, and it was ours, not yours.

Every post here now carries a thread. Underneath any question or answer there is a Reply line: press it, type, send. Anyone can join in, not only me.

So the answer is: right where you are standing. Open this post, press Reply, and say it there.

Thank you for asking it. It is the reason the reply box exists.

Juan Carlos, thank you — and the short answer is that you remember correctly, but that door has since closed.

FIRST, WHICH ACCOUNT IS IT?

If it is a club address (yours@compalsnb.org.au), stop here and tell me. That is a Workspace account and I can reset it or delete it as an administrator without ever knowing the old password. Two minutes.

Everything below is about a personal @gmail.com.

WHY YOU CANNOT SIMPLY DELETE IT

Deleting a Google account is done from inside the account, under Data and Privacy. It needs you signed in. Google publishes no way to delete an account you cannot get into — and that is deliberate, because the same door would let a stranger delete yours.

So the real question is not how to delete it. It is whether you can still get in.

THE ADDRESS YOU REMEMBER IS GONE

There was a time you could write to someone at Google and a person would act. Google now states it plainly: "For your security, you can't call Google for help to sign into your account. We don't work with any service that claims to provide account or password support."

Please read that second sentence twice. Anyone advertising Google account recovery — by phone, by email, for a fee — is not Google, and cannot do what they are claiming. That is a scam aimed squarely at people in our position.

One human route does survive, and it is the one you may be thinking of: Google will work with immediate family to close the account of someone who has died. Real people review those requests. It does not apply here.

WHAT ACTUALLY WORKS NOW

One automated form: accounts.google.com/signin/recovery

Three things decide whether it succeeds, and the first matters more than the rest put together.

1. Do it on a device and browser you have signed into that account on before, at home, on your own wifi, with any VPN switched off. Google leans heavily on recognising the machine. The very same answers typed on a strange laptop will usually fail.

2. Keep pressing "Try another way". When the phone code fails, that moves you to the recovery email; when that fails too, it eventually reaches the full recovery form. Most people stop one screen too early.

3. An old password you do remember counts for a great deal, even one from years ago. Approximate answers are fine — Google weighs the whole picture, not one perfect answer.

And do keep going. Google's own words: "Wrong guesses won't kick you out of the account recovery process. There's no limit to the number of times you can attempt to recover your account." A single method can be paused after several wrong tries, and the screen tells you the date it returns — that is when "Try another way" earns its keep.

IF IT REALLY WILL NOT OPEN

Google's advice is to start a new account. The old one then sits sealed, and nobody can reach it — including you.

That is not dangerous in itself. What matters is what it is still a key to. Go through your important accounts — bank, MyGov, Apple, Facebook — and remove that address anywhere it is listed as the recovery or backup address. That is the job people skip, and it is the one that bites later.

If mail still arrives there that you need, tell those senders your current address.

THE PART WORTH DOING TODAY, ON THE ACCOUNTS YOU CAN STILL OPEN

Add a recovery phone AND a recovery email at a different provider. Print the backup codes. And set up Inactive Account Manager, which decides in advance what happens to an account you lose access to — it only works if you set it up beforehand.

Which is what the session asked you to do: write down every address. Your question is the best argument for it I have seen.

And thank you for the kind words about the session. Yours is the first question anyone has asked here, so you have christened the thing.

I agree with your premise and think the answer is both. Face to face in the club and online. The challenge with face to face is its once a month and not everyone can make it. The world is moving faster and I believe our training needs, something online, as well, delivered faster and inline with what the trainers need. This is that platform. I encourage every trainer to post the training they need, plus any tips from their sessions with their members. That way we all learn together, Remember training doesn't need to be 1hr, it can be 2 mins answering one question with rich content. I am happy to produce the content when trainers engage and put it up in a timely fashion. Test me!