Why you need to keep access to your Octo account email and what to do if you lose it

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Why you need access to your email

• Password changes and recovery. If you forget your Octo Browser account password and want to recover or change it, you can only do so through your email.

• Security notifications. Notifications about sign-ins from new devices and other important account activity are sent to your email.

• Two-factor authentication. You can enable 2FA only after confirming the action by email.

• Verifying account ownership. To change the email address associated with your account, delete your account, or perform other important actions with it, Customer Service requires a request sent from the email address used to register the account. To confirm that you have access to your Octo Browser account, you will need to follow the link in the email sent to your registration address.

What risks does your account face if something goes wrong with your email?

There are two main scenarios: you've lost access to your email, or someone has hacked it.

You simply can't access your email

Your Octo account will continue to work as usual without access to the registration email address, but:

• if you forget your account password, you won't be able to recover it;

• you won't be able to enable 2FA or change your account email address;

• Customer Service won't be able to verify that the account belongs to you.

Someone else has taken control of your email

An email account you no longer use doesn't simply disappear. It can still be hacked, especially if the password is weak or has already been leaked and 2FA isn't enabled for the email account.

The risk is especially high if your account is registered with:

• An email address you can't access. You won't even see a notification about a new sign-in.

• A temporary email address. Many temporary email services don't protect inboxes with passwords. Anyone who knows the address may be able to read the messages.

• A former employee's email address. If the account is registered to an employee's personal inbox, they'll retain access to that email after leaving the company.

• An abandoned email address. Some email providers delete inactive accounts, and the freed-up address may sometimes become available for registration again.

Anyone who gains access to your email can reset your Octo account password and sign into it. If two-factor authentication isn't enabled, nothing will stop them, and they'll be able to access your unprotected profiles along with the associated accounts. Meanwhile, you may not even notice anything: the notification about a sign-in from a new device will be sent to the same email address that you can no longer access.

Email is the weak link in this chain. Octo Browser protects user data: profiles are encrypted using the AES-256 standard with several keys—the secret key, a unique key from the database, and, if a profile is password-protected, the user's key. Without any one of these keys, the profile can't be decrypted. You can read more about this in our article on data protection. But email isn't our service, and we have no way to access it directly. That means you're the only one who can ensure its security.

The good news is that even if you've lost access to your email, you can still protect your profiles as long as you can access your Octo account. Here's how.

What to do if you've lost access to your email but can still log into Octo

If you can log into Octo, you can move your profiles to a new account registered with a secure email address. The key is not to put it off.

Transferring profiles on Base and higher subscriptions

Transferring profiles in Octo Browser

1. Create a new account using a secure email address. A secure address is a personal or work email account that you use regularly. Don't use temporary email services.

2. Purchase a subscription for the new account. Make sure the plan has enough profile slots for all the profiles you want to transfer.

3. Remove profile passwords right before transferring them, if any are set. Profiles protected by passwords can't be transferred.

4. Transfer the profiles to your new account. Simply select the profiles you need, click Transfer, and enter the email address of your new account. You can choose whether to transfer proxies and VPNs along with the profiles. Extensions aren't transferred with profiles.

5. Enable two-factor authentication on your new account. Read the guide to learn how it works and why you need it.

6. If you removed profile passwords before the transfer, remember to set them again afterward.

Transferring profiles on all subscriptions

Profile transfers aren't available on Lite and Starter subscriptions. However, you can move your profiles in two other ways:

1. Export profiles. Export the profiles as files and then import them into your new account. You must also remove profile passwords before exporting the profiles. Exports cost €0.50 per profile.

2. Export cookies. This is less reliable than the methods discussed above: only cookies, and not digital fingerprints, are saved. You'll need to create new profiles in your new account and import the cookies into them.

How to check that your email is secure

If you have access to your email, check whether you've done everything on this list:

• Your account is registered with an email address you use regularly, not a temporary one.

• You remember your email password and can log in right now.

• Two-factor authentication is enabled for the email account itself.

• If you have a team, its members' accounts are also registered with their regular work email addresses.

If your account is registered with an insecure email address but you can still access it, contact Customer Service from that email address and ask to change it.

Do you still have any questions? Contact our Customer Service on Telegram or WhatsApp.