PS4 Recover Account

[Alexis_04]

Hello, is there a way to recover a PSN account on my old PS4 without any account details. I have an old PSN account on my PS4. We only have the email, but no access to the email or the password to reset. I'm pretty much at a loss and I really want to recover this account. Is there anything I can do, maybe mod my PS4 to access the info so I can log in to the account on PlayStation's site. The email in mind was made from a family member who no longer has access to the account since it was made several years ago.

I know this sounds stupid, but I really want this account back after years of losing access to it, is it possible to recover? Thank you.

 

[Gregor]

I don't think modding it will make a difference as the password is likely hashed. I had a similar problem with my wii u. I knew the email, but I no longer had access to it nor did I know the password of the account. what I ended up doing was calling Nintendo, then they linked me to an account recovery page to fill out. this was when I was trying to put the account on a new wii u after my old one failed. they asked several things including a list of digital games on the console to verify I was the owner. I had the foresight to list my games in a txt file several months before, so it was very easy to do that. basically, I'd call Sony and explain the situation. it's very unlikely you're the first person with this problem, so I'm sure they have a contingency plan for just this situation. Nintendo didn't give me the password. they just reset the account with a new email address, one I gave them.

 

[Berion]

If you will hack your console, you will get access to partitions where system settings are stored. They are encrypted but AFAIR, it was defeated long time ago. You can just FTP those files to PC and there open it. Login and password lies in plain text excluding disk encryption layer, and file encryption layer. So it is fully recoverable. The joke is: to hack PS4, it must be on old enough firmware.

High probably Sony will ignore you, telling that there is no way to recover account but of course it is worth a try.

 

[Gregor]

the ps4 account password is in plain text? lol weird. I had backed up the entire nand of my wiiu before one of its components failed. it would still turn on though, but I couldn't access cfw anymore. anyway, you can open the file which contains things like account name, email, birthdate, etc. in notepad++, but the password is hashed in there, so unfortunately, I couldn't get the password from it. in my case, I was transferring the content from one system to another. I don't know if Sony will do anything, but my past experiences with all three companies have been positive.

 

[Berion]

It is but lies behind two layers of encryption so from security point of view, it doesn't really matter because access to it, needs kernel hack first.

Or maybe my info is outdated because i.e on PS3 is no longer written on console since mandatory 2FA implementation. I didn't saw PS4 settings file for very long time, so maybe also they did the same with PS4 and PS5. I dunno.

 

[Gregor]

now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I helped someone with this problem on another site. I was able to build the registry editor, because I think he had forgotten the account password or something. afaik, you can read the registry, but not write to it. however, that wasn't necessary for this. there's like five registry files from what I remember. the registry editor for ps4 can be built in visual studio, and there aren't very many files for it, so it's pretty easy to build. it doesn't require any dependencies from what I remember either.

edit: if the op can't build it, I'll try to for him. visual studio 2022 community edition should be good too. op, if it asks to retarget the solution, do so.

edit 2: I went ahead and built it. it didn't ask to retarget solution, but it did require one dependency I had forgotten about - .net framework 4.8 developer edition. it won't even allow you to build it without it. I built the debug and release versions. it should work with either x86 and x64.