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How to recover your deleted Google account and YouTube channel

Update: consumer Google+ is shutting down April 2, 2019. This will not affect your YouTube channel.

The integration of Google+ and YouTube can be confusing, and sometimes folks assume that they can just delete their Google+ Profile and start over. Unfortunately, when you delete a Google+ Profile that is linked to a YouTube channel, your YouTube channel will be suspended (but can pretty easily be recovered).

Unfortunately if you delete your entire Google account, rather than just your Google+ Profile, recovering your YouTube channel can be much more complicated. Recovery of your YouTube channel requires you first restore your Google account, and only then can your YouTube channel possibly be restored.


So, if you have inadvertently deleted your Google account and your YouTube what can you do?

1. Restore your Deleted Google Account


The first step is to restore your Google account. Note that time is of the essence! The longer you wait after deleting your Google account, the less likely your account can be recovered.

1. You can start the Google account recovery process here: www.google.com/accounts/recovery/

2. Choose either "I'm having problems signing in" or "I don't know my password" and enter your Google account's email address. For most people that will be a Gmail email.

3. You will then be asked to enter the last password you remember.

4. At this point you should be offered the option to use one of the recovery methods you have set for your Google account (either phone or email) to restore your account. Hopefully that works and your Google account is restored.

5. If you have not set any recovery options for your Google account, you may then see an account recovery form, which asks you detailed questions about your account's creation and use that only you - the account owner - should be able to answer.  Answer the questions to the best of your ability, and hopefully that will be sufficient to restore your Google account.

Note that you should NOT create a new Google account with the same email address. Creating a new Google account will not give you access to your YouTube channel and make may recovery of your original Google account impossible.

2. Recover your YouTube Channel

Once your Google account is restored, your YouTube channel may be restored automatically. The sooner you recover your Google account after deleting it, the more likely your YouTube channel will be recovered as well.

If your YouTube channel is not automatically restored, you will have to contact YouTube support for assistance, using this form:

support.google.com/youtube/bin/request.py?hl=en&contact_type=linkissue

Note that you must restore your Google account before your YouTube channel can be restored. YouTube support is unlikely to be able to assist you if you have not recovered your Google account.

If you are reading this article and you have not set any recovery options for your Google account, I urge you to do so now! If something does happen to your Google account, you will then be more likely to be able to regain access to your YouTube channel, Blogger blogs, Google Docs and other content.

Related information:
(Last update: March 2019)

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