i think if the user will forget the password they will surely forget the recovery code as well, so going with the optional e-mail link seems to be the only reasonable option

I should clarify what I mean by "recovery codes." These are a set of onetime use codes that users can download or copy from the settings page. Once it used, you can't use it again. If all codes are used user should generate a new ones

sounds inconvenient tbh, i think going with the (optional) email would be better

speaking of, if we are going to use email recovery, it wouldnt hurt to have some kind of privacy policy

that's one of the reasons i prefer recovery codes
Second reason: does anyone know how to setup email service to send messages? i think it's kinda hard

well, you can do it your way, i just dont think that storing those codes is safe or convenient enough

in theory, to generate codes we can use striped hash of current password hash and username. Then we don't need to store it anywhere. I don't think it's possible to get password hash without access to database

i mean storing codes for the user, not for us

Well, at least github and discord use it as recovery option. Email is better, i agree, but it will be harder to setup than codes.
So... i prefer codes over email

well, something is better than nothing for sure, i have no objections then, hopefully we can come up with something better in the future though

Okay, then discussion is closed, i'll go work on it