Every few months, I try the recovery process again to no avail. "Sign-in with Google" is very convenient so it'll be a pain to move to proton + outlook but c'est la vie
I can confirm it works as well since someone sometimes fat fingers whatever email address they use for car repair and I get the invoice for it due to Google not respecting the dots in the email address.
My master plan is to get hired at gmail just so I can click the admin reset password button and get access to that account directly so I can finally see the very first emails I ever received.
And same as everyone else, already had forwarding in place so it's just kind of... there in an uncomfortable limbo. I don't really use it for much so it's not a big loss but it would be nice to resolve one way or another.
I never use Google to login anywhere anymore. I create an email and an (autogenerated secure) password everywhere. If they don't see fit to support this, they don't get my business.
Then I just let Bitwarden/Firefox take care of everything. Logins, etc. I have 500? passwords stored. Don't know any of them. I prefer it this way.