Sign-in protection
What happens after repeated failed sign-ins, and why it is a delay rather than a lockout.
Repeated failed sign-in attempts on an account are slowed down automatically. The first few are free: enough for a mistyped password, a stale saved one, or picking the wrong of two accounts. After that each further wrong attempt adds a wait before the next one is accepted, and the wait grows with each attempt. The sign-in page always tells you exactly how long.
Signing in successfully clears it immediately. If you eventually remember your password, you are not still serving a delay earned by the attempts before it.
Why a delay and not a lockout
Locking an account after a set number of failures sounds safer, but it hands anyone who knows your email address a way to lock your colleagues out on demand. A growing delay makes guessing pointless without ever leaving a real person shut out of their own account. Someone who keeps going is slowed to a rate at which working through even a weak password is hopeless.
The delay also has a ceiling. It gets slow, not permanent.
What counts
Attempts are counted per account, not per device or location. That is deliberate: automated password guessing is spread across thousands of different computers precisely so that no single one looks unusual. Counting per account is what notices it.
Attempts against an address that has no account are counted the same way, so the sign-in page cannot be used to work out which addresses are registered.
The waits also fade on their own after a quiet spell, so a few failures this morning are not still slowing you down this afternoon.
If you are locked out for longer
The wait is always bounded and never becomes a lockout, so if you still cannot get in:
- Use Forgot password to set a new one.
- If you have two-factor authentication on and have lost both your authenticator and your recovery codes, contact support. See Two-factor authentication.