How to Recover Wikipedia Account

Are you a regular contributor to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia? Then you may have a user account. So, every time you want to contribute something, you need to log in to your account. For this, you need a username and a password. So, what if you have suddenly lost access to your Wikipedia account? This may happen in several cases – You may forget your username, password, email, and many other reasons. If you are someone who has lost your account and are searching for a solution to recover it, then this is the right place for you. We have listed a few scenarios that may lead to losing your account, and we have also discussed the solutions to recover it. So, keep reading the article, and you will find the perfect solution that will help you get back to your Wikipedia account –

Case 1 – You Forgot Your Wikipedia Username

With the great load of web applications that we use today, there is a great chance of losing our username and password. As the username is unique, we often tend to forget the names used in every application. As every login requires you to enter a username and a password, it becomes difficult to access your account if you have lost your username. But, no worries! Here are a few methods to help you out –

Method 1 – Searching For Your Username

If you have lost or forgotten your Wikipedia username, there are a few methods that you can try out. You can find your username in a few places, as listed below. Check these places out, and you can easily find your username –

• Check if you have enabled Remember Me on your browser. If enabled, your username will show up once you click on your username box in the login screen.
• Check your email for any emails from Wikipedia. If you have received any, this email will contain your username.
• Try to remember any page titles that you edited on Wikipedia while you were logged in to your account. If you find a page, you can get your username from the Page History.

If you didn’t get your username from any of the above locations, don’t panic. There are a few other methods to try out. Check out the next method.

Method 2 – Using the Wikipedia Username Search Box

Try remembering at least the first part of your username. This is probably going to be your name or the pen name that you usually use. Even if you don’t remember it exactly, at least try to get a few options. If you can figure out the first part of your username, you can search for it in the official User Search Box from Wikipedia. Follow all the steps mentioned below –

1. Go to the Wikipedia Users Page.
2. Scroll down a bit, and you will see a section with a form. You need to fill in this form and Wikipedia will list out all the usernames according to the filters.
3. In the first text box, type in the starting part of your username.
4. The next dropdown denotes the Group. Select which type of user you are.
5. If you want, you can also select the filters given below to sort all the results.
6. Click on Show.

A list of all the users that are in accordance with your filters appears here. Read all the names, and you may get your username from that list. Don’t know which is your username even from this list? Well, there is another possible method that you can try –

Method 2 – Using the Password Reset Feature

Wikipedia provides another method to log in to your account without your username. However, there are a few conditions. If you fulfill every condition given here, then it is easy to get back to your account.

1. You have entered your email address previously on Wikipedia, either while creating your account, or later in your Preferences.
2. You still have access to the email account that you entered previously.
3. In your preferences section, you have not enabled the option that requires you to enter both username and email to receive a password reset from Wikipedia.

If you satisfy all the conditions mentioned above, then you can easily recover your account. In this method, you will be receiving a password reset link from Wikipedia to your mentioned email address. To get the detailed procedure of how to do this, check out the guide on Resetting Wikipedia Password, provided later in this article.

If you fail to satisfy any one of the conditions given above, then you cannot get back to your account in this way. Were you unsuccessful in finding your username even after trying out all the methods that we mentioned? Unfortunately, there is no other way. Wikipedia does not provide a method to retrieve your username from your email address or IP. You must create a new Wikipedia account to proceed.

Case 2 – You Forgot Your Wikipedia Password

Similar to usernames, we often tend to forget our passwords too. This is really common, and Wikipedia has a built-in solution to get back to your account. However, you must have linked your email address to Wikipedia earlier, and have access to your email account for this method to work. You may have entered your email address when you created this account. Or else, you can even link your email through the Preferences tab in your account. In either way, if you have linked your email, then this is what you need to do to recover your account –

Resetting Wikipedia Password

If you know your username, then you can directly proceed with this method. If not, refer to the previous case and follow all the steps mentioned there. Also, if you have enabled the option to require both username and email when requesting a password reset from Wikipedia, then you don’t need your username for this method. When everything is set, here is what you have to do –

1. Go to the official Wikipedia Password Reset Page.
2. Enter your username and your email address (that you have linked with your account). If you don’t know your password, and you have disabled its requirement in the Preferences tab, then you can enter your email address alone.
3. Click on Reset Password.

Once you do this, Wikipedia will email you with a login link. Open your email, go into that link, and you will log in to your account. However, this is just another method to log in to your account and not to change your password. Once you get into your account, you can go into your settings and change your account password.

Case 3 – You Are Logged Out Automatically After Logging In

Sometimes, due to various reasons, you may get logged out of your account every time you log in. This is mostly due to some minor technical problems. Here are a few reasons that may trigger automatic log-off on your system. Try performing these –

• Once you log in to your page, a message box or notification stating “Login successful” appears. But as soon as you start searching or moving on to another page, you are immediately logged off. If this is the case, it is most likely to be a cookie issue. Try enabling cookies on your browser.
• Make sure that the date and time set on your system is up-to-date. Sometimes, a wrong system time may cause cookies to expire way before they are supposed to.
• Also, ensure that there is no firewall or ad-blocking software enabled. Sometimes, these can also interfere with the cookies that keep a person logged in to Wikipedia.
• Try clearing out your browser cache, or logging in through an Incognito browser tab.