Your Android phone may be linking your number to every Google account

Android phones have been automatically adding a SIM card's phone number to every Google account signed in on the device for more than a year, according to Google's support documentation. The number is verified during setup and then written to every account on the phone, including work accounts and secondary ones.

Google says the verification makes features such as account recovery and RCS messaging possible. What it does not explain is why the number has to be attached to every account. Many users only notice when unexpected verification emails start arriving.

When did the setting become the default?

Based on a review of the documentation, Google's relevant support page was updated at some point between August and October 2025 to state that verification is on by default. A Google Play services changelog dated September 8, 2025 also says number verification runs automatically during setup. Some users are only learning of the change now, after receiving emails they never requested from noreply-phone-verification@google.com confirming that their numbers had been verified.

The linking covers current and future accounts as well as current and future numbers. A Google account added later inherits every number on the phone, and swapping the SIM card adds the new number to all accounts. Google and the carrier re-verify these numbers at regular intervals, which can result in carrier charges. The setting can only be managed from the phone itself.

Features tied to verification, and the advertising question

Keeping verification on also enables Google's Better sharing feature for one of the signed-in accounts. Google says it provides video calling, messaging and notification support for content such as photos sent to the number. Sign-in with a phone number, finding a lost device, emergency location services and Quick Share also depend on a verified number.

In October 2025, a month after automatic verification arrived, Google introduced a recovery tool for Android called Sign in with Mobile Number. It automatically finds the Google accounts linked to a phone number and allows sign-in using the old device's screen lock passcode. Google's help pages also describe a Better ads and Google services setting that uses a phone number across services to show more relevant ads. The same page says any verified number on an Android device can be added to any Google account signed in on that device. Google has not said which advertising setting applies to automatically added numbers.

How to turn it off, and what it costs

To stop the linking, go to Settings > Google > All services, choose Phone number verification under Privacy & security, and turn off the option to automatically verify phone numbers. On some phones the Google section appears as Google services & preferences.

Turning it off is not retroactive: numbers that were already added must be removed by hand from each account under Personal info > Phone. According to one security firm's assessment, disabling verification means losing RCS chats in Google Messages, with conversations falling back to SMS. Google's Messages help pages also indicate that RCS waits for phone number verification before connecting. With end-to-end encrypted RCS between Android and iPhone beginning to roll out in May, that trade-off carries more weight. The same assessment says a number whose verification is off cannot be used for quick account recovery either.

Google says it does not sell personal data, including phone numbers, to anyone. In May, the company also disclosed that it had been testing a practice in some regions of giving new Google accounts only 5 GB of free storage, instead of the usual 15 GB, unless a phone number is linked.