Hey guys,
I’ve been using GPT Plus for quite some while and it bugged me, that when I have to login on public or shared devices with mail Google-Account. So when my prepaid Credit-Card ran out, I thought perfect opportunity to change my account to a mail based login. So I deleted my account and now im in a limbo. I cannot recreate it, because you don’t support it yet. Your help page cites that:
“If you previously deleted an OpenAI account, we unfortunately don’t support creating a new account with the same email or reactivating the old account.”
[https://help.openai.com/en/articles/9019931-can-you-reactivate-my-deleted-account]
Can you please consider adding the functionality in the future?
I think at the moment, your account management is still somewhat lacking. Especially from a UX point of view. Why is this information not stated in the actual account deletion interface in chat.openai.com? Why is this info hidden in a second hyperlink, derived from a specific help article that only is of relevance to the user when it is already too late:
“Oops! You do not have an account because it has been deleted or deactivated.”
This also did not happen, no mail from you guys, to finally agree to the account deletion.
If you deleted your account , you will have received emails to confirm receipt and completion of your deletion request.
Also I got again a confirm mail address mail when I recreated my account and this does not seem like a clean practice. Why even let me recreate a account and verify the mail, just to hit me with “Oops” on first login.
Of course I have alt-mails and I will recreate a account, but please consider improving this.
Thanks for your time and have a nice day 
4 Likes
Couldn’t agree with you more. Compared to my situation, perhaps you are considered to be lucky.
My original account (associated with my primary email) was accidentally deleted by my kid several days before I contacted support around mid-April 2025. Similarly, there were no warnings like email notifications whatsoever. When I checked back, I realized the deletion process might be too easy. It asked to input my email address and the word “delete,” but my email was displayed right there in the interface, making it easy for anyone to copy and paste it.
I contacted the help center almost immediately after this happened. I explained that the deletion was a mistake, that I was still a Plus member, and that I had unused API credits left in my account. I stated I wanted my account restored and that I could provide anything they needed to prove I was the sole owner. But the only thing support repeated to me over and over was that they have strict policies and there is absolutely no way to restore the account or allow reuse of the original email address, even in my situation.
Since I needed the service daily and didn’t have a backup email readily set up for OpenAI, I did as the representative suggested and created a new account using my original email with a “+openai” alias added at the end. Of course, the value of the old Plus subscription and the remaining API credits were just lost, since transferring balances between accounts is also against their policies.
Then came the truly frustrating part. I manage all my subscriptions through my Apple ID for easy tracking. Naturally, I wanted to subscribe the new OpenAI account to Plus using the same method. But when I tried, Apple informed me that my Apple ID could only be associated with one OpenAI Plus subscription – which was the one linked to my old, deleted account (associated with my original email). I contacted the OpenAI help center again about this. They expressed sympathy but essentially told me I would need to resolve the subscription issue with Apple directly first, and only then could I subscribe to Plus on the new account via the OpenAI website, not through Apple again.
Come on, this entire experience is incredibly unconvincing and user-unfriendly. It genuinely makes me wonder if these rigid policies are designed more to protect OpenAI’s processes than to protect users, especially in cases of verifiable accidents.
I am still pursuing this and have sent a formal complaint via email to their Privacy Department, detailing these issues, but I haven’t received a reply yet.
I don’t know how many other people are suffering from policies like these. But if you are, I hope you see my case. Maybe if enough of us complain about these unfair and inflexible policies, OpenAI might eventually listen.