OAuth recovery emails look harmless until you test them the lazy way. A team sends password reset links or recovery codes into one shared mailbox, confirms that something arrived, and marks the job done. From a security view, that test is too weak. It can hide token reuse, wrong-user delivery, or log retention that exposes sensitive account events.
For non-production checks, I like using a disposable email address that belongs to one test run. Some teams build that inbox layer themselves, some use tempmailso, but the core principle is the same: isolate the recovery event, inspect it quickly, and delete the evidence you no longer need. That is helpful when Authentication and OAuth changes ship together.
Why OAuth recovery emails deserve their own threat model
Recovery email tests are not just "did the mail send?" checks. They sit on the edge of account takeover risk, so the message itself matters almost as much as the login flow.
A decent threat model for these emails should ask:
