Can't restore username to previously used username. is there a waiting period?

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1

I want to restore my Vercel username back to a username I used before (on the same account). I temporarily changed it while I migrated accounts, and now I can’t change it back to the original. This all happened within 20 minutes; pretty confident no other account has claimed the original username. I understand that you generally don’t want to allow reusing usernames, but I’m trying to set it ON THE SAME account that owned it originally!

Is there some time I must wait until I can reclaim my username, or is it gone forever??

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Here’s the full story of what happened, only for context. It all stems from the fact that a GitHub account can only be tied to a single Vercel account…

  • Starting point

    • Personal vercel account with personal email and projects in hobby team.

    • Work vercel account with work email and work team.

    • Single github account.

  • Because GitHub can only be associated to a single Vercel account, I had to choose one account to consolidate onto. I chose to consolidate onto my work Vercel account, so that I don’t have to involve my supervisor.

  • Goal: migrate personal Vercel account into work Vercel account, with the following steps:

    1. Release personal email from personal account: add a secondary personal email, make it primary, and remove personal email. → ok

    2. Change my username from <original> to <tmp> (a temporary/jokey username) so I could use <original> in my work account, which would become my only account going forward. → ok (but this turned out to be a mistake)

    3. Add personal email to work Vercel account. → ok

    4. Change username from <work> to <original> → :red_exclamation_mark:failed!

      • Apparently I cannot use an already-used username, even if it’s been released… ugh, ok fine, let’s use <alternative> instead. (another mistake)

    5. Transfer project from personal Vercel account hobby team into work Vercel account’s hobby team → :red_exclamation_mark:failed!

      • Turns out you can only transfer projects from within teams in your same account, ugh. Looks like I’ll have to consolidate into my personal Vercel account instead.

      • Why not just re-deploy the project in the work account? because the project is serving live traffic and the vercel.app domain would have to change. I don’t want to have downtime.

  • Adjusted goal: undo all the previous changes, and consolidate onto personal Vercel account.

    1. Release personal email from work account → ok

    2. Release work email from work account (had to use another temp email) → ok

    3. Add personal email and work email onto personal Vercel account → ok

    4. In personal Vercel account, change my username back from <tmp> to <original> → :red_exclamation_mark:failed!

      • OK, I understand the security reason why you don’t want to allow username reuse, but this is THE SAME account that owned <original> before!

      • Also, I can’t use <alternative> either because it’s been used by my work Vercel account. I’m locked out of my two usernames!

    5. Cleanup: delete work Vercel account → ok

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4

Hey, Rodrigo! Welcome to the Vercel Community :waving_hand:

I believe that when a Vercel username is changed or an account is deleted, there’s a recovery buffer period before that username becomes available again:

  • Personal accounts: 4 days
  • Team accounts: 7 days

You’re correct that a GitHub account can only be linked to one Vercel account at a time. This is a security measure to prevent unauthorized access and maintain clear ownership of deployments.

Let us know how you get on!

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5

Thanks for the reply, Pauline! I’ll try again in a few days and report back then.

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