Google Is Quietly Linking Your Phone Number To Different Android Accounts

Android telephones have been attaching their SIM’s cellphone quantity to each signed-in Google account on that machine for greater than a 12 months. Google’s help documentation says that it verifies the quantity robotically throughout setup and provides it to each account on the cellphone, together with work and secondary accounts. According to Google, verification permits options like account restoration and RCS messaging, however the firm does not clarify why the quantity must be added to each account.

Android Authority discovered that the Google documentation in query was amended someday between August and October 2025 to say that verification is on by default, whereas a Google Play providers changelog dated September 8, 2025 lists quantity verification as operating robotically on setup. However, loads of of us are solely now discovering out, after unprompted emails from [email protected] started arriving to inform them their quantity had been verified.

According to Google’s support page, the hyperlink covers current and future accounts and numbers alike. In different phrases, a Google account that is added later will decide up each quantity on the cellphone, whereas switching SIM cards additionally places the brand new quantity on each account. Google and your provider additionally re-verify these numbers periodically, which might incur provider fees, and the setting can solely be managed from the cellphone itself.

It’s a little bit of a clumsy scenario, as a result of turning verification on additionally permits Better sharing on Google for one of many signed-in account. Google says this helps video calls, messages and notifications for content material despatched to the quantity, equivalent to images. Phone quantity sign-in, discovering a misplaced machine, emergency location providers and Quick Share additionally all rely on a verified quantity.

In October 2025, a month after computerized verification arrived, Google launched Sign in with Mobile Number, an Android restoration device that auto-identifies the Google accounts linked to a cellphone quantity and lets the proprietor again in with the lock display passcode from their earlier machine. Google’s account help pages additionally describe a Better advertisements & Google providers setting that makes use of a cellphone quantity throughout Google providers to point out extra related advertisements. 

The similar web page says that any verified quantity on an Android machine will be added to any Google account signed into it, although Google hasn’t stated which advertisements setting applies to numbers connected robotically.

To cease the linking in your Android cellphone, open Settings > Google > All providers, then underneath Privacy & safety, choose Phone quantity verification and switch off Verify cellphone numbers robotically. Some telephones will label the Google part Google providers and preferences as a substitute. 

Keep in thoughts that turning this off does not apply retrospectively, which means numbers which have already been connected have to be eliminated manually. You can do that by navigating to Personal information > Phone in every account’s Google settings.

Kaspersky says disabling verification additionally means shedding RCS chats in Google Messages, which pushes conversations again to SMS. Google’s Messages help pages present RCS waits on cellphone quantity verification earlier than it connects. That trade-off carries extra weight, since end-to-end encrypted RCS messaging began rolling out between Android telephones and that iPhones in May. Kaspersky provides {that a} quantity with verification turned off cannot be used for fast account restoration.

Google says it does not promote private information, together with cellphone numbers, to anybody. In May, it additionally instructed Android Authority it was testing a coverage in choose areas that offers new Google accounts only 5GB of free storage unless a phone number is linked, down from the same old 15GB.