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Why Stack Exchange does not send your previous password to your email (when you forget it)? (Instead it gives you a recovery link and you have to change it again.)

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    $\begingroup$ Sending user passwords in cleartext to email is extremely insecure, and should never be done. $\endgroup$
    – user296602
    Commented Jul 11, 2016 at 20:29
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    $\begingroup$ It's also worth mentioning that if they're doing security well, they probably don't even have your password. They have some cryptographic hash of it. (Or if you're authenticating your account through another service, such as google, they wouldn't really have access to it in that case either). $\endgroup$
    – user296602
    Commented Jul 11, 2016 at 20:34
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    $\begingroup$ I don't see why there's a close vote here. It's a really bad idea, but it is absolutely about the software that powers the Stack Exchange network. $\endgroup$
    – user296602
    Commented Jul 12, 2016 at 5:34
  • $\begingroup$ I think this question is more appropriately asked at Meta Stack Exchange since it is not specific to Mathematics Stack Exchange. $\endgroup$
    – JRN
    Commented Jul 12, 2016 at 13:10

1 Answer 1

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Stack Exchange do not store your password, so they can't send it to you even if they wanted. (Source: a series of tweets by Nick Craver)

If a site sends you your password by email, it is unadvisable to trust them with anything of value.

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