The passwords of the main email services such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Outlook.com are constantly under attack, given their diffusion. It is therefore advisable to periodically change the access password (in addition to adopting advanced defense tools such as two-factor authentication), so as to prevent hackers from incorrectly accessing our email account.
In this guide we will then show you all the steps to be done to change your password in Gmail, Outlook.com and Yahoo Mail and also how to check the security measures to prevent a stranger from the other side of the world from accessing our account also if he had our password.
READ ALSO: Account and password recovery on Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo Mail
1) Change password for Google / Gmail account
To change your password in Google and consequently on Gmail, we open this page, log in with the credentials in our possession, scroll down the page until you find the Google Access section, where we can see the last time it was changed. the password; if more than a year has passed, click on Password, confirm the old one and choose a new password.
After setting the new password, go back to the previous page to also check the security of your Google account by also setting an alternative email address, a phone number for account recovery and two-step verification.
The Gmail password is the same as the Google account and also concerns access to the Android phone, Youtube, Google Maps and any other Google service.
2) Change password on Outlook.com
The Outlook.com password is that of the Microsoft account and, therefore, also of the PC with Windows 10 if a Microsoft account is used as the system access system.
To change it, go to this page, log in with our Microsoft credentials (Outlook, Xbox or Hotmail), click on the Update button present under the Update security info section and, in the window that will open, click on Change password .
We insert the old password and, when asked, choose a new one that is difficult to guess.
Then we increase the security of the account by clicking Update info, to add a mobile phone number for the recovery of the account (if it is lost) and activate the two-step verification to receive an additional security code via SMS.
3) Change your Yahoo Mail password
To change your Yahoo Mail Email account password, go to this page, enter your login credentials, make sure to bring you to the Account security side menu, then click on the word Change password, on the right side.
We type in the old password and when requested enter the new one in the two required fields.
Also on Yahoo Mail we can enter another recovery email address, a phone number and two-step verification.
4) How to choose a new password
As already explained in the guide to having a strong password for web accounts, the best way is to think of an easy-to-remember phrase that also has a capital letter and a number like " how much I like to play with Playstation 2 ", use the initials of each word to make the password, surround it with two characters special and add the initial of the site as, for example: @ .
Each password will therefore be different for each site, it will be easy to remember and almost impossible to discover.
If then we have difficulty remembering passwords that are too complex, we can use services or programs that can save passwords and generate new ones with a very high level of security.
The best free online service in this sense is LastPass; sign up for the service and install extensions compatible with browsers (Google Chrome, Firefox and Edge), so as to integrate it with the web pages we visit.
When we decide to change the password, click on the LastPass icon at the top and click on the Generate Secure Password item.
In the next window we will be shown a random password, of which we can manage size and special characters to be included, which will be automatically copied to the clipboard, inserted in the password change fields on the visited site and finally saved within the service.
If we want to save passwords offline the best program is KeePass .
We install this program on the PC, we create our new database by clicking on the New button, then we click on Tools -> Password Generator .
A new window will open in which we will be able to choose the characteristics of the secure password to be generated: we can choose whether to include uppercase, special characters, underscores, ANSI characters and so on .; with this tool we will generate very secure and reliable passwords.
We avoid using other types of programs or worse unknown sites to generate passwords : many are managed by hackers and could steal your access data thanks to the passwords provided by their own sites.
Note also that Google Chrome, if you activate the password manager in the settings, has the function of generating random passwords which are then remembered and saved safely in the Google account.
To increase the level of security we can enable two-factor (or two-pass) authentication, which makes accessing online services more annoying but tremendously safer, since along with the password, a code sent via SMS or via synchronized apps is also requested with the OTP code to be generated.
In this regard, we invite you to read the article below.
READ ALSO: Guide to two-pass verification of passwords
