Recovering your account

You recover an account when you can no longer sign in and no device of yours is left that is still signed in to it. Recovering gives you the name back, with its role, its rooms and its address. It does not give you your history back, and nothing can.

Try your other devices first

If you are still signed in anywhere (your phone, an old laptop, a tab you never closed), do that instead. Settings there can set a new passphrase, and the keys, and with them your history, can be carried to the device you are on now. Recovering is only for when no device is left. The recovery page says this before it asks you anything.

If you made a recovery key

A recovery key is the better way back, if you made one before you lost your devices: it restores the account's own keys, with no email and no wait, and nobody's safety number changes. Choose I have my recovery key on this page. What follows on this page is for when you have none.

What it costs

Yeetline holds no key that opens your messages. They were made on your devices and never left them, so a recovery cannot hand them back: it gives the account new keys. Everything sent to the old ones, your history, will not be readable again, by you or by anyone else, the server included. The people you talk to will see that your safety number changed, and can check it with you. You are told this before you start, at the code step and again at the end.

The steps

Forgot your password? on the sign-in screen, then Recover this account. It appears only where this server can send email.
Type your username and say you understand that old messages will not be readable. A code goes to the email address on the account, if it has one that was confirmed. The page answers the same way whether or not the account exists, so nobody can use it to find out who has an account here. The code has twelve digits, works for at least 10 minutes (the email says until when) and for one use. If a code was sent a little while ago it still works and no second one is sent, so look in the newest email. Starting again never makes an earlier code stop working, and nobody else starting your name can keep you from a code.
Enter the code. If the account has an authenticator app or a passkey, you are asked for that too; a recovery code works in its place and is used up. An emailed code and a linked Google account are not a second proof here, because the email was just that proof.
Wait 24 hours. The recovery starts the moment you finish the steps above, and the address on the account and every device still signed in are told right then: "Someone is recovering this account", with a Cancel button. The email carries a cancel code as well. Where an administrator must approve recoveries on this server, they must say yes too; that does not shorten the wait.
Come back to the same page after the wait. It picks up where you left off on this device. You are mailed one last code, then you choose a new password. The new keys are made on your device, sealed under that password, and you are signed in. A recovery that is ready stays ready for three days; after that it lapses and you start again.

When it finishes, every device and every sign-in of the old keys is ended, in every Yeetline app that signed in with the account, and the old keys' one-time prekeys are dropped. The second factors you showed stay; the places you had marked "trust this device" do not. The devices you lost never stand in your way: a plan's number of devices (three on Basic, ten on Pro) bounds only the devices kept trusted and notified, never a sign-in, and recovering ends every one of the old ones in the same step that signs you in, so the device you recover on starts with all of its places free. An administrator's one-time password does the same.

If it was not you

Cancel it: from any device that is signed in (the notice has a button), with the cancel code in the email (Forgot your password?, Recover this account, then A letter said someone is recovering my account), or by signing in, which cancels any recovery on its own. Canceling changes nothing about the account. If you never started it, change your password and your second factor, because it means someone can read your email.

What the server keeps

While you recover: your username, the times, a hash of the page's token and a hash of the cancel code (not the codes themselves), which kind of second factor you showed (not the factor), and, if an administrator was asked, who decided. No password, no key and no address of yours is in it. It is deleted 30 days after the recovery ends. Before that, while a code is waiting, the server holds a hash of the code in memory for as long as it works (10 minutes to 4 hours), and nothing at all for a name that does not exist. The audit log keeps a line for each step, with the network address the request came from, for as long as the audit log is kept.

If recovery is not offered

A server that cannot send email cannot prove your email address, so it does not offer recovery by email (it still offers the recovery key's page). An address nobody ever confirmed is never sent a code either, because a code mailed to a mistyped address would reach a stranger; if no code comes and the spam folder is empty, that may be why. Ask an administrator: they can set a one-time password for your name, which gives it new keys the same way and has the same cost. See Signing in, Your account and The ways to sign in.

Last changed 2026-10-19