We had a near-new Huawei P8 Lite phone in the office that wouldn't let us log in after a factory

We had a near-new Huawei P8 Lite phone in the office that wouldn't let us log in after a factory reset without using the google account that had previously been on it - apparently this is called "Factory Reset Protection" AKA "FRP". Unfortunately the Google account was deleted long enough ago that we could not undelete it, so I've now learned all the obscure and sneaky little tricks that can be used to bypass this. I've been spoiled with Nexus devices for so long that I was surprised that I couldn't factory reset from the boot menu, or even using 'fastboot'.

Ultimately the trick that proved successful was:
- enable "Talkback" on the language choice screen (long-press with two fingers)
- progress through setup as far as enabling wifi
- bring up talkback menu with "L" swipe
- Go into talkback settings
- bring up talkback menu with "L" swipe
- Pause talkback (this is probably not really needed, but talkback is increibly annoying in the office :-)
- Go into help menu
- Find some help with a youtube video in it
- Minimise video and go through Youtube menu to find "Privacy Policy", which starts Chrome running
- Skip Chrome account sign-in
- In Chrome download the QuickShortcutMaker from a reputable APK source (you have to do this a few times while going through various settings to enable the installation from disreputable sources, etc, etc, etc - eventually you get it installed, and get an "Open" buutton).
- In QuickShortcutMaker find the launcher (a.k.a. "Home" screen) and "Try it"
- Now from the launcher you can launch Settings (probably could have just gone straight here from QuickShortcutMaker, realistically)
- In settings -> Accounts -> Add a Google account
- Reset phone and now you can use the newly added Google account to log in!
- Success! :-)

The instructions below were the ones that gave me the clues I needed - it looks like Huawei are pretty aggressive about plugging the holes in this process because I've found a variety of "these new instructions work now" posts at various points through 2017 but it wasn't until this one from October that I found one that worked.

For the future I think I'll be disabling this kind of protection - and recommending people disable it. If someone steals my phone then I kind of have to assume their need is greater than mine, and they'll probably know the latest set of these hacks. If I lose my phone I'd hate to think that the person who finds it can't factory reset it it and use it and sell it. And for many of the phones around me the most likely scenario is really something like what happened: the google account got deleted because someone left the company...

http://www.techeligible.com/2017/11/06/bypass-google-account-huawei/