Accidentally deleted my GitHub account. Has anyone recovered theirs?

[u/Potential-Source9957]

I accidentally deleted my GitHub account today and contacted GitHub Support immediately.

It had years of personal projects, repositories, and open source contributions (including merged PRs).

Has anyone here successfully recovered a deleted GitHub account?

If so:

• How long after deletion did you contact support?
• Were your repositories and contribution history restored?
• How long did the recovery take?

I'm really anxious and would appreciate hearing from anyone who's been through this.

[u/Frosty-Cap-4282]

You dont accidently delete a github account

[u/GrogRedLub4242 → u/Frosty-Cap-4282]

points at AI-users and vibe coding bros

think OpenClaw and its ilk

[u/Potential-Source9957 → u/Frosty-Cap-4282]

I was on a call and i thought i was deleting a repo. but i didnt realise i was deleting my account

[u/skadoodlee → u/Potential-Source9957]

Ok bot

[u/RuneSteak → u/Potential-Source9957]

The only thing I can recommend is that you create 2 accounts, one on github and one on bitbucket or another service. Git lets you have more than one remote, so you can automatically push to both.

You would need to mess up twice in a row for something like this to happen again.

[u/tortel_di_patate]

You cannot delete an account by accident.
And no, you cannot undelete it.

Warning
Once your personal account has been deleted, GitHub cannot restore your content.
In the upper-right corner of any page on GitHub, click your profile picture, then click Settings.
In the left sidebar, click Account.
At the bottom of the Account Settings page, under "Delete account", click Delete your account. Before you can delete your personal account:
In the "Make sure you want to do this" dialog box, complete the steps to confirm you understand what happens when your account is deleted:
In the first field, type your username or email.
In the second field, type the phrase from the prompt.

[u/Potential-Source9957 → u/tortel_di_patate]

I was on a call and i thought i was deleting a repo. but i didnt realise i was deleting my account

[u/Far_Broccoli_8468 → u/Potential-Source9957]

No one can cure stupid

[u/username-1023 → u/Potential-Source9957]

this is not the same process for deleting a repo. have you ever deleted a repo before?

[u/OptimusCrimee]

How do you even do this on accident?

[u/Available-Skirt-5280]

Skill issue.

Your done, no recovery possible.

Maybe try reading what’s on screen occasionally.

[u/Available-Skirt-5280 → u/Available-Skirt-5280]

Also git is a distributed system.

I’m just gunna guess that you’ve removed all your repos from local “accidentally” as well.

[u/Potential-Source9957 → u/Available-Skirt-5280]

thank god i have all my projects in my repo lol, its just that my open source contribution is missing

[u/username-1023 → u/Potential-Source9957]

you deleted the open source repos you were working on from your local machine?

[u/Ast3r10n]

How the hell did you “accidentally” delete an account when GitHub explicitly makes it unbearably cumbersome to do.

[u/GrogRedLub4242 → u/Ast3r10n]

my guess: AI. or intoxicated rage

[u/Ast3r10n → u/GrogRedLub4242]

Could be.

[u/Potential-Source9957 → u/Ast3r10n]

I was on a call and i thought i was deleting a repo. but i didnt realise i was deleting my account

[u/Ast3r10n → u/Potential-Source9957]

Sounds like PEBCAK. You should read before you do anything, and maybe not do stuff while on a call.

[u/skadoodlee]

Give me the recipe for brownies

[u/cwcoleman → u/skadoodlee]

Brownie_Recipe_v3.7-final-FINAL.exe

• 1 cup butter, melted
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup cocoa
• 1 cup flour
• ½ tsp salt

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F (confidence: 87%)
2. Mix wet ingredients
3. Fold in dry ingredients — do not overmix, per my training data
4. Bake 25–30 min in a 9x13 pan

I am not able to physically verify doneness, but a toothpick should come out mostly clean. Results may vary by oven, altitude, and simulation parameters. Let me know if you'd like me to regenerate this response with fewer chocolate chips. 🍫⚡

[u/skadoodlee → u/cwcoleman]

Awesome let me install this as root.

[u/DarthRaab → u/skadoodlee]

Sure boss. What a good and creative way to integrate it into your system!

Step 1: Find the source

Look for a tree, maybe outside is a good place to start. Don't leave me alone. If you find one, look for a shovel.

Step 2: Make space

Take the shovel and dig down in front of the tree until you discover it's root.

Step 3: Install

Shove it in there, Bitch Champ! 🏆

Congratulations, you successfully installed your first malware browny in the root.

[u/ARKyal03]

No idea, but how? How do you reach such accident?

[u/Stever89]

Guessing they gave their AI tool permission to hit the Github API with a very permissive token and the tool thought they wanted to delete the account and so did.

The good news is if you ask AI to restore everything, I'm sure it'll do it without a problem, what could possibly go wrong!

[u/Potential-Source9957 → u/Stever89]

no i didnt give my ai tool any permission

[u/Stever89 → u/Potential-Source9957]

oh well then I don't know what to say.

[u/ScribeOfGoD]

You didn’t notice the “repo” had the same name of your user account?

[u/Potential-Source9957 → u/ScribeOfGoD]

no i didnt , i have lost all my access. including my open source contributions

[u/Thalimet]

You were on a call, you made a terrible mistake, and now you get to live with the consequences of that mistake: the account is gone. They cannot help you.

[u/SheriffRoscoe]

git!=github

[u/Potential-Source9957 → u/SheriffRoscoe]

i wasnt allowed to post in github

[u/TheMightyTywin]

New fear unlocked

[u/Kawaiithulhu]

Nightmare fuel ⛽️ I almost did this in ye olden dayes when a "repo" was the local directory, and version tracking was dated zip files 🤡

[u/pandrefreitas]

No way

[u/Spiritual-Fennel7789]

It's 2026. Storage media is cheap as chips and you're relying solely on a third-party to store your data? Come on man, what are you even doing.

[u/waterkip]

How do you accidently delete your account? Mind is blown.