We all need a break from social media from time-to-time, and many of us choose to cement our decision to withdraw by temporarily disabling or deleting our accounts. Oftentimes, we may even just forget our login credentials, and thus find ourselves locked out of Facebook, whether we wanted to be or not.
To learn how to recover an old Facebook account, simply follow our step-by-step tutorials below. For all other information, or for other unanswered questions, please refer to our FAQ section at the end of this article.
Note: You cannot recover Facebook accounts which have been permanently deleted. If you have chosen to delete your Facebook account permanently, then you have 30 days and 30 days only to recover it. After this grace period, unfortunately there is nothing you can do to recover the account.
Table of Contents
How to recover an old Facebook account (with login credentials)
You can recover deleted Facebook accounts with this method only within 30 days of deleting the account permanently.
- On your smartphone or desktop, open the Facebook app, or navigate to the Facebook website via your preferred web browser
- Next, tap or click ‘Log in to existing account’
- Enter your Facebook profile credentials – typically your email address and password – ensuring that they are the correct credentials for the old Facebook account you’re trying to recover
- Lastly, click ‘Log In’
- You may have to authorise your ownership of the account with a further step or two – simply follow the on-screen instructions to do so
- Having successfully logged into your old Facebook account, it is now successfully recovered!
How to recover an old Facebook account (without login credentials)
You can recover deleted Facebook accounts with this method only within 30 days of deleting the account permanently.
- On your smartphone or desktop, use your preferred web browser’s search engine to navigate to the Find Your Account Facebook page. Alternatively, click this link.
- Once there, enter the mobile telephone number or email address associated with your old account into the blank textbox.
- Next, hit ‘Search’. Facebook will search its databases to find profiles associated with the email address or phone number you’ve entered and will then generate a list of these.
- Select the correct account from the list by clicking or tapping on it.
- Facebook will send you a temporary verification code to the email address or phone number (by SMS) you entered before. Go and find this now.
- Back on the Find Your Account Facebook page, enter the verification code in the text box and press Enter/click Continue.
- You will now be prompted to choose a new password for the account. Set a new password and login to your old account using these new credentials. You have now successfully recovered your old account!
How to recover an old Facebook account (with another account)
If you have access to a friend’s Facebook profile, or you have a new one but wish to recover an old one, use this method.
- On a smartphone or desktop, open the Facebook app or head to the Facebook website, and log into your alternate Facebook profile (or that of a friend)
- Next, find your old Facebook profile via the search bar at the top of the homepage (type in your old account’s name – usually yours)
- Left-click/tap on the correct account from the drop-down list
- On your old account’s page, tap or click the three horizontal dots below the profile’s cover photo
- From the drop-down options, select ‘Find support or report profile’.
- Next, select ‘Something else’.
- Finally, choose ‘Recover this account’, and follow the on-screen instructions to recover your old account and choose new login credentials for it.
And that’s all you need to know in order to recover an old Facebook account! If you have any other questions, or would like more info, see our FAQs below.
FAQs
Why would I need to recover an old Facebook account?
Facebook was one of the world’s first social media platforms to go global, if not the first. Since then, it’s rebranded to Meta, and taken control of various other platforms, too, like Instagram and WhatsApp. A Facebook account allows users to connect with potentially millions of people, all around the world.
On Facebook, you can keep up to date with your favourite pals, businesses, bands and brands; you can upload and store albums of photos and videos; you can build your own business or brand, watch live streams, you name it! The possibilities are seemingly endless.
Unfortunately, as with anything which requires login credentials, it’s always a possibility that you might forget your details and thus be locked out of your account. Perhaps, instead, you chose to temporarily disable your Facebook account so as to take a break from the social media giant, but now wish to re-enable the account, and don’t know how.
Whatever your reasons for wishing to recover an old Facebook account, we’re here to help you. Simply follow our step-by-step tutorials above.
Can I recover an account I deleted?
When looking to delete or disable your Facebook account, there are a wide variety of ways you can go about this. You can choose simply to temporarily disable your Facebook account, meaning that whilst it will still exist, access to it will be restricted.
On the more extreme end of the spectrum, however, you may choose to delete, or ‘permanently disable’ your account. You may wish to for any number of reasons, not least to devoid yourself of one too many social media profiles. However, doing so is permanent, and will put a time constraint on recovering this old account post-deletion.
After permanently disabling/deleting a Facebook account, you have precisely 30 days to recover it before it is deleted forever from the Facebook servers. Thankfully, recovering it within those 30 days is easy (see our tutorials above). Unfortunately, there is no way to recover an account after this 30 day grace period.
If I recover my old Facebook account, will I also recover my old posts and photos?
Yes! Disabling your account, or being locked out of your account, will not affect the photos, videos, posts, messages, and other media you have stored on the Facebook app. As soon as you regain access to your old Facebook account, you will also recover the media associated with it.
This is not the case, however, for accounts which have been permanently deleted. Once an account is permanently deleted, following a 30 day grace period, not only can it not be recovered, but all of the media associated with it will have been deleted from the Facebook servers for good.
In order to avoid this unfortunate situation (in the eventuality that you change your mind and what the media back), it is highly advisable to download a copy of your Facebook profile and profile data (including media of your choosing – all or some) before completing the deletion.
You can do this on the General Account Settings page of the Facebook Settings. Simply click the hyperlink reading “Download a copy of your Facebook data”.
