***RECOVERING LOST LICENSE KEY***

[James-N-atx]

For me, the easiest way to recover a License Key I've already paid for is to refer to the email I received from VDH confirming my purchase. They always include your key in the email. I keep every email that is a receipt for a transaction, and it has saved me a ton of grief when license keys are lost.

[Wild Willy]

This is the best way of operating. Sadly, it seems most people are terribly careless
about such things. For them, there is always this:

https://groups.google.com/g/video-downloadhelper-q-and-a/c/BzPLK2YyL-s

Search for "lost" within the text of that web page. You'll find instructions there for
how to retrieve your license number if you have been careless about keeping the important
document that is the E-mail sent from VDH confirming your purchase of a license. That
E-mail also contains a link to your invoice. If you lose your invoice, there is no way
to recover it, like there is for the license. You should download your invoice to your
computer & save it as well.

If you have changed ISPs & the E-mail address you used to purchase your VDH license no
longer exists, you have to send an E-mail to Jérôme at jcv...@gmail.com (jcvdh56 @
gmail.com) asking for his help. Tell him your old E-mail address & your new one. If you
can come up with further details, like when you bought the license & for which platform
(Windows/Mac/Linux, Firefox/Chrome/Edge), that can also be helpful. It seems that if you
have more than one license, like say for both Firefox & Chrome, the self-help license
retrieval gives you only the Firefox license. In this case, you are forced to E-mail
Jérôme for the other license.

So yes, keep important documents. Just because they are mere E-mails doesn't mean you
can just mindlessly delete them. Save them some place where you can find them again
later. You keep important things like your driver's license, your car registration, the
title to your home, tax documents, wills, other physical objects of importance in a safe
place. Treat these E-mails the same way.

Then there's the weird issue of the disappearance of the Google Pay support for Chrome
licenses. Back in the days when Google Pay was the mechanism for buying a VDH license
for Chrome, users didn't get a formal license number. They just logged in on Chrome &
poof, their VDH registration was in force. But when Google Pay yanked the rug out from
under VDH, Michel reacted by changing the management of the Chrome licenses to the same
way as has always been done for Firefox & Edge licenses. Chrome now needs an explicit
license, same as the other 2 browsers. But people affected by Google's abrupt action
don't have a way of doing the self-service license retrieval. Their only recourse is to
E-mail Jérôme & get him to send you a license number. I find it weird that this is still
an issue. I mean, the Google Pay thing was stopped about 2 years ago, if memory serves.
I don't understand how people can still at this late date be getting caught out by this
issue. Whatever. That appears to be the case. Instead of complaining, as they've been
doing in here for the past few weeks, they should just E-mail Jérôme & he'll take care of
things.

[Wild Willy]

It occurs to me that I've already said everything I've posted above, and not recently.
Go back to this thread:

https://groups.google.com/g/video-downloadhelper-q-and-a/c/BzPLK2YyL-s

Next, look for "philosophy" within the text of that web page. That will give you a link.
Click that to learn all about the VDH license. While you are reading that, you will see
some links to yet other discussions. Be sure to click those links & read those secondary
discussions. They contain important information that will add to your understanding of
the VDH license, what it is, what it does, & what it does not do. Everything I've said
above, about keeping important documents, about contacting Jérôme, about the Google Pay
issue, all of it, is in the rather old discussion of the license & in the secondary
threads that discussion refers to. So many people refuse to search this forum & make an
attempt to find the answers to their questions. There's over 10,000 discussion threads
in this forum. By making not the slightest effort to help themselves, people are
insulting those who have made the effort to post their experiences & solutions in this
forum. I expect this rampant laziness will continue & this thread in its turn will be
ignored like so much else in this forum. This is a useful tool, this forum. But it's
useful only if you make the effort to use it.