Hi everyone, I have an old Google account that I don’t use anymore, and I’m thinking about deleting it. But I’m worried I may have used that email address for government services or other important accounts in the past, and I don’t want to overlook something that could cause problems later.

What should I check before deleting it? Do you have similar experience?

  • LewdLemon@sh.itjust.works
    12·
    2 days ago

    Check your password manager. What other accounts is the e-mail address account linked to? Change it, then delete the account.

    If you don’t have a password manager: Now is the time to get one. I recommend KeepassXC (PC, cross-platform) / KeepassDX (Android). Combine with Syncthing for cloudless cross-device sync of the password database file.

    Also, don’t worry too much. You wouldn’t be the first to lose access to an e-mail address. Governments or “other important accounts” usually have procedures to deal with that issue. But: a Google account shouldn’t be linked to anything important anyway, let alone government accounts.

    • imminent_nebula@lemmy.ca
      3·
      2 hours ago

      I’ve been making changes to get off Proton lately and this is my plan, but I have a question if you don’t mind? This is the first time I’ve tried self-hosting, and I’m waiting on a laptop I’m getting returned from a friend to host things like Keepass, Immich, calendars, etc. I’m trying to get my ducks in a row as best I can while I wait.

      I’ve switched to Keepass from Proton Pass already, and it was significantly easier than I was expecting. Currently I’m doing things manually, every time I add/change something I copy the file to my devices, so each one has a local file.

      If I understand correctly, Syncthing will, well, sync the things lol. I slap Syncthing on each device and point them to where the keepass file is located right? But is the location the local file per device or the “master” file on the laptop server? I suppose my question is: Is there a master file on the server computer (my returned laptop) that devices sync to, or can I make a change on say my phone, and everything syncs without there being a “central” host, basically Syncthing replaces “me” in my current flow? If the latter, I suppose i don’t need Keepass/Syncthing setup as a dedicated server?

      • LewdLemon@sh.itjust.works
        3·
        2 hours ago

        Great questions, all of them! No, there need not be any “master file” - but there can be. ;) Let me lay it out for you.

        There are two possible models you can build with Syncthing:

        • a star-shaped client-server structure places the server at the centre of the network. The server is the central authority that always holds the “master file”, i.e. the newest version of the file, and the clients receive it from there (or don’t, if they’re already up to date). This structure, mind you, does not require dedicated server hardware: if you, say, have a phone, a notebook and a desktop PC, you can also make your phone the “server”, i.e. the only device that is connected to all the others and that “serves” everyone the newest version of your password DB.
        • a meshed peer-to-peer structure has no centre - just a number of clients that are connected to all other clients. In this network, whichever device has the “newest” version of the file is the device that distributes this newest copy to all connected peers.

        Which model you go for depends on how many devices you’re planning to hook up. If you only need to keep two devices in sync (e.g. your phone and your notebook), the client-server structure would probably be overkill, and actually Syncthing is typically deployed in serverless peer-to-peer scenarios.

        However, if you have a lot of devices to sync, it may be more efficient to go with the client-server setup. Example time to make this more transparent!

        Let’s say you go with the p2p structure because you only have a phone and a notebook hooked up to Syncthing. You configure:

        • on the phone: share a folder with the notebook!
        • on the notebook: share a folder with the phone!

        But now you want to add another device, e.g. a desktop PC. Now you need to

        • add the PC to the phone, and add the share
        • add the PC to the notebook, and add the share
        • add the phone and the notebook to the PC, and add the share

        Otherwise you end up with a partial mesh, i.e. not every device immediately writes its changes to all others.

        If you now add a fourth device that also needs to receive the share, you already have to make changes on four devices. And so on and so on. The more devices you add, the more work you need to put in.

        TL;DR:

        Syncthing can work without a “master file”. It can do peer-to-peer shares and work without a server. However, the more devices you need to share to, the more efficient a star-shaped / server-like architecture will become. This, however, does not require dedicated server hardware; you just decide that one of the devices will fulfil the role of the server by hooking all client devices up to it.

        One last, minor correction: Syncthing only lets you share folders, not files. So you’d create a “KeePass” folder, toss your DB in there and share the folder to the receiving devices.

        • imminent_nebula@lemmy.ca
          1·
          1 hour ago

          Appreciate it thank you! So basically in either setup syncthing just checks for an updated version of the file on any device and replaces the old versions on all devices? Do I have this right?:

          A simple 2 device setup would be easy with a p2p structure, but can get convoluted when adding more as they all then need to connect to eachother. If I have multiple devices (which I do) a star-shaped structure means each device only has to connect to the main server device.

          In the p2p example, the phone adds a new password, the notebook sees the change through syncthing monitoring the phones folder, and replaces it’s file with the new one. If I change something on the phone when I’m out of network, the change is local and works fine on the phone (but obviously wouldnt on the notebook) then syncs when i get back on the network and updates the notebooks file.

          In the star-shaped structure, all devices point to the server file. I change something on network on my phone, the server file then sees the change and updates, then the other devices do the same. If I change something off network, again the same as the p2p example with one extra step; once back on network the server sees the change on the phone, updates, then the other devices update to that.

          Is that the jist of it?

          Edit: So basically if I wait for my laptop, I set it up, then on my phone for example I set syncthing to the folder on the laptop, then change the local Keepass folder to the syncthing laptopo folder?

    • firn@lemmy.ml
      2·
      2 days ago

      I heard keepass was going hard on the AI. Is that true? I can’t find much about it tbh.

      If so, that’d make me nervous for a pw manager. If not, then it seems like a legit option.

      • LewdLemon@sh.itjust.works
        31·
        2 days ago

        I heard keepass was going hard on the AI. Is that true? I can’t find much about it tbh.

        I can’t tell you much about that, other than

        • I’ve never heard about that
        • they haven’t got an agents.md or similar giveaway files in their Github repo that suggest they do
        • they do have a short paragraph about GenAI in their Github that reads:

          Generative AI is fast becoming a first-party feature in most development environments, including GitHub itself. If the majority of a code submission is made using Generative AI (e.g., agent-based or vibe coding) then we will document that in the pull request. All code submissions go through a rigorous review process regardless of the development workflow or submitter.

        Personally, I don’t mind devs using GenAI if it’s used in a responsible fashion, i.e.

        • it is used to support software engineering, not replace it: any actual creative / design work is done by humans, GenAI is only there to help with simple, but tedious tasks (writing smaller, easy-to-review code snippets, unit testing, etc.).
        • there’s a human at the helm, meaning: every line of code is human-reviewed.

        Also, I tend to trust projects more whose code base started long before GenAI was a thing. Typically, these have a large base of maintainers and contributors, and the people contributing code know what they’re doing. This is certainly true of Keepass.