How to Create a Gmail Account Without a Phone Number

Google doesn’t always need your phone number to create a Gmail account. Its own sign-up steps call the number optional, but sometimes Google insists on a text message before it lets you in.

This guide explains when you can skip the phone number, what to do when Google won’t let you, and how to keep the account safe without a phone.

Can you create a Gmail account without a phone number?

Often, yes. In Google’s help page for creating an account, the phone step reads: “Optional: Add and verify a phone number for your account.”

The catch is in another Google help page: “To help protect you and stop spammers, before you create an account or sign in, sometimes phone verification is required to confirm you’re a real person.” Google doesn’t say exactly when it asks, so two people signing up on the same day can see different screens.

There are three situations you might meet:

How to create a Gmail account without a phone number

1. Open the Google Account sign-in page and choose Create account, for yourself.
2. Enter your name, then your birthday and gender. Google asks for both. You need to be at least 13 to manage your own Google Account in the US and the UK.
3. Choose your Gmail address and create a password.
4. At the phone step, leave the number out if Google lets you. If it’s optional, you can continue without it.
5. Add a recovery email when Google offers it, review the terms and finish.

If Google won’t let you past the phone step, you still don’t have to use your own number.

When Google insists: use a temporary number

Google sends the verification code by text message, so any number that can receive SMS works, as long as Google accepts it. Google rejects numbers it has seen too often, with one of two errors:

• “This phone number cannot be used for verification”: Google says it limits “the number of accounts each phone number can create”.
• “This phone number has been used too many times for verification”: it also limits “the number of times a phone number can be used for verification”.

That’s why public numbers from free receive-SMS websites rarely work: thousands of people have used them already. A fresh non-VoIP number hasn’t been used for Google before. It’s a real mobile number from a carrier, so Google sees an ordinary phone.

1. Create a free PVADeals account and add credits: crypto from $3, or a card through Stripe from $5.
2. Choose Google (Gmail) and the country: the United States or the United Kingdom.
3. Pick a rental. A short-term number lasts 20 minutes, from $0.09; a long-term number lasts 3, 7, 14 or 30 days, from $0.70.
4. Enter the number on Google’s verification screen and choose to get the code by text message. PVADeals numbers receive SMS only.
5. Copy the code from your PVADeals dashboard and finish creating the account.

For more detail, see our full guide to a temporary number for Gmail verification.

Create a Google Account with your existing email instead

If you don’t need a Gmail address, there’s another route. Google says: “You don’t need to have a Gmail address to create a Google Account. You can also use a non-Gmail email address to create one instead.”

During sign-up, choose Use your existing email, enter the address you already have, and verify it with the code Google sends there. You get a Google Account for YouTube, Google Drive and other Google services, signed in with your own email instead of a new Gmail address.

Keep your Gmail account safe without a phone number

An account without a phone number needs other ways back in, in case you forget your password or Google asks you to verify a sign-in:

• Add a recovery email. Google suggests “an email address you use regularly but not the one you use to sign in to your Google Account.”
• Set up Google Authenticator or a security key. Since 2024, Google lets you add an authenticator app or a hardware security key before you turn on 2-Step Verification. Previously you needed a phone number first. Authenticator codes work “without an internet connection or mobile service.”
• Create a passkey to sign in with your fingerprint, face or screen lock.
• Save your backup codes. Google gives you a set of 10, and you can make a new set whenever you want.

Do this early. Google notes that it may take up to 7 days for Google Authenticator to show up as a sign-in option. And don’t use a Google Voice number as your recovery phone: Google warns that you “could lock yourself out of your account”.

If you verified with a temporary number, switch to these methods before the rental ends, or keep the number longer with a long-term rental. To change or remove the number later, see how to change the verification number on Gmail.

If Google still won’t let you sign up

• Try a different number. Google’s own advice for both phone errors is to use a different number.
• Choose a text message, not a call. PVADeals numbers receive SMS only.
• Wait a few minutes before asking for another code.
• If Google shows a QR code, it wants a mobile device to scan it. No rented number can do that, so use your own phone for that step.

If an eligible PVADeals number receives no SMS during the rental, its cost comes back to your balance automatically as store credit.

Your Gmail, without your personal number

Many Gmail sign-ups don’t need a phone number at all. When Google insists, a real non-VoIP number keeps your own number out of it, from $0.09 for 20 minutes. See our US and UK phone numbers, or read how to get a temporary phone number for verification.