The account number
What the account number is, why there is no password behind it, and what happens if you lose it.
You do not need an account to use ForestVPN, and never will — the free tier and every paid plan work with no email, no username and no password. The account number exists for one reason: to use the same subscription on more than one device. If you only ever use one device, you can stop reading here.
If you lose the number and no device still has it saved, we cannot get it back. If you had an active subscription, support can refund what is left of it. Support cannot restore access to the account itself — there is nothing on our side to prove it was yours beyond the number.
What it actually is
A 32-character number, created once, shown once, on screen, in the app — under Account → Create. There is no identity behind it: no email address, no username, and nothing that connects it to you personally. It is the account, in the same sense a gift-card code or a Wi-Fi password is the thing it unlocks: whoever has it can use it, and there's no separate password on top to prove it's really you.
That is a deliberate trade. An email-and-password account would let support look you up and reset something; it would also mean we hold an email address that ties a person to their VPN use, which is the one thing this product exists to avoid. The number is what's left when you remove that.
Treat it like a credential, because it is one
Anyone holding the number can attach a device to your subscription. Don't send it over email or chat, don't paste it into a support ticket, and don't read it out loud somewhere it could be overheard. If someone asks you for it — including someone claiming to be ForestVPN support — that is the request to refuse. Support can see a short-lived diagnostic code you generate yourself under Account → Get help; they never need your account number to help you.
Where the app keeps it
On iPhone, iPad and Mac, once you create a number the app saves it in iCloud Keychain, so it carries over automatically to your other Apple devices signed into the same iCloud account — including a replacement phone, once it's set up. This needs iCloud Keychain turned on in Settings; if it's off, the number lives only on the device that created it, and writing it down somewhere you control is the only backup.
Restoring a subscription onto a new device
Right now, the account number is the reliable way to move a subscription onto a replacement device: create one on your current device before you need it, then enter it on the new one under Account → Sign in. Restoring a purchase on a device that has never seen your original account number is not guaranteed to reattach it, so if you expect to replace a device — or already run more than one — create the number first rather than after.
Creating and using it
- Account → Create, on the device that already has your subscription. The number is shown once; save it somewhere you control before leaving the screen.
- On another device, Account → Sign in, and type the number in.
- For a device with no keyboard — Apple TV, a router — see devices and linking for the pairing-code flow instead.
Attaching a device this way is permanent: there is no way to detach one yourself, by design — see devices and linking for why, and what to do if a device is lost.