Locked out of Google accounts for mail, contacts and calendars, and stuck!
I was recently in Malawi, and added a simcard to my esim. Now my google mail accounts that have my contacts are locked out. Hi — I’m having a persistent issue adding my Gmail accounts to the iOS Mail app. After signing in through Google’s login page, my iPhone cycles back to the “Add Account” screen and never saves the account.
Here is exactly what happens every time:
- I choose Google under “Add Account.”
- I enter my Gmail address and password.
- Google shows “iOS wants to access your Google Account.” I tap Allow.
- Then Google shows a 6-service permissions screen (Mail, Contacts, Calendar, etc.). I tap Continue.
- iOS immediately returns to the account list without adding the account.
The Google account never appears, and the loop continues indefinitely.
Here is everything I have already tried on my end:
- Reset Network Settings
- Reset All Settings
- Cleared Safari history/cookies
- Turned off 2-step verification
- Removed all Google passkeys
- Signed out and back into my Apple ID
- Fully erased the iPhone
- Restored from iCloud backup
- Updated to the latest iOS
- Removed 23 old iPhone sessions from my Google account
- Removed all third-party Google access
- Tried this on multiple networks
- Tried both of my affected Google accounts (d******@gmail.com and d***@equipleaders.org)
Even after a full erase, the phone immediately goes back into the same loop. This makes me think some corrupted Google authentication tokens or iOS account metadata were restored through iCloud Keychain during the restore.
I need help determining whether:
- iCloud Keychain is restoring corrupted Google OAuth tokens that prevent iOS from saving a new one, or
- The built-in iOS Google account integration framework (used by Mail/Calendar/Contacts) has cached invalid credentials, or
- There is a deeper system-level corruption in the GoogleAccount framework on this device.
What I’m hoping Apple can help with:
- Confirm whether iOS’s Google account integration is functioning normally
- Confirm whether iCloud Keychain might be reintroducing corrupted account tokens
- Advise whether I should set up the iPhone totally as NEW (without Keychain) to break the cycle
- Check any system logs for the account-adding failure
- Make sure iOS is not injecting old Google permissions into the sign-in flow
My goal is to get a clean, fresh Google account token added to the phone, which the device is currently unable to do.
Thank you for your help.
[Edited by Moderator]