Android has been adding your SIM's phone number to every Google account on the phone, work accounts included. You can turn it off, but there are trade-offs.
Android phones have been attaching the phone number from your SIM card to every Google account signed in on the device, and many people are only now noticing. The setting has been on by default since September 2025. Some users found out when emails from noreply-phone-verification@google.com arrived saying their number had been verified.
Google's support pages say the phone verifies your number automatically during setup and adds it to every account on the device, including work and secondary accounts. The link covers existing and future accounts. A Google account added later picks up every number on the phone. Swapping in a new SIM card puts the new number on every account too.
Android Authority found that Google's documentation was changed between August and October 2025 to say verification is on by default. A Google Play services changelog dated September 8, 2025 also lists number verification as running automatically on setup.
Anyone with an Android phone and more than one Google account is touched, especially if one of those accounts belongs to an employer or is a spare. Users of Google Messages are affected as well, because chat features depend on the verified number.
Your number may now sit on accounts where you never chose to put it. Google says verification supports account recovery and RCS messaging, which is the newer kind of texting that replaces plain SMS. It has not explained why the number must go on every account. Google also says it does not sell personal data, including phone numbers, to anyone.
There are other loose ends. Google and your carrier re-verify numbers from time to time, which can bring carrier charges. The setting can only be managed from the phone itself. Google's help pages also describe an ads setting that uses phone numbers to show more relevant ads, but Google has not said which ads setting applies to numbers added automatically.
The alert box above lays out the steps to switch this off and to clear numbers from each account. The key point is that turning it off is not retroactive. Numbers already attached stay until you remove them by hand.
Switching it off has a cost. Several features depend on a verified number:
Kaspersky points out that the RCS loss matters more now, since end-to-end encrypted RCS between Android phones and iPhones began rolling out in May. People who rely on those features may decide to leave verification on and simply review which accounts hold their number.
Google introduced Sign in with Mobile Number in October 2025, a recovery tool that finds the accounts linked to a number. That suggests the company sees the link as useful. Phone numbers may also become harder to avoid. In May, Google told Android Authority it was testing a policy in select regions that gives new accounts only 5GB of free storage, down from the usual 15GB, unless a phone number is linked.
Check your Android settings and each Google account, because your number may already be attached, and turning verification off will not remove it.
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