You Can Still Delete Your Old LiveJournal Without The Username Or Password

If you weren’t looking to get hit with a hearty dose of nostalgia, you’re going to want to turn right back around. Today, we dive into an internet of the early aughts. Today, we brave the depths of our internet past. Today, we’re going to figure out how to delete your old LiveJournal account. Brace yourselves. There are moody teen waters ahead.

Though I was a Blogger.com Goddess and many of my friends were worshiped at the altar of Xanga, LiveJournal was among the sites where we confessed our sins and hopes and dreams, complete randomly BOLDED words and ~*fun colors*~. There is no shame in deleting old blog accounts. I’ve done it. Meghan Markle’s done it. Eventually, we are all on the internet long enough to have something we want scoured from the social media annals.

If you come today seeking forgiveness for the blogging sins you committed over a decade ago, I am here anoint you internet salvation. Per the LiveJournal FAQ page, here is how to delete your LiveJournal account in six easy steps:

1. Log into your account and visit the page marked “Account Status.”
2. On that page, you’ll select the name of the journal you want to delete. It will likely be named something like “xXxSecRetShAdOwsxXx” or “Honey Gurl 1992.”
3. You’ll select your username in the Work as user: field
4. Then, press "Switch".
5. You can also delete comments and entries you left in other journals and communities. (Huzzah! A revelation!) To do this, click the corresponding checkboxes.
6. Take a deep breath and choose "Deleted" in the Status field.
7. Finally, click the Submit button and wave farewell to all your teenage feelings.

“Please note that in LiveJournal, your personal journal is your account,” the site states. “Thus, by deleting your journal, you are automatically cancelling your account and unsubscribing from LiveJournal.” Purge yourself of your account, my friend.

The above steps are all assuming you still remember your username and password. If you’re racking your brain for what combination of capital letters you used for your “Hilary Duff 4 Life” password, have no fear. You can retrieve your LiveJournal password or username by following a few simple steps.

Basically, you’ll just need to enter the email address you used to open the account and they’ll send you your login info. So easy! So simple! So, what email address did you use in middle school again? Was it “skatergirl” or “sk8rgirl” or “sk8rgurl”...

And therein lies the rub. You’ll only be able to recover your account provided you can remember the email address you used for the account and you still have access to that email.

“If you do not have access to the email address you most recently used with your account, you will not be able to retrieve your username,” the FAQ page states with absolutely zero sympathy. It’s like they’ve completely forgotten how, in everyone in the early ‘00s burned through dozens of different email addresses with some indiscernible combination of numbers and underscores.

“However, you might be able to use LiveJournal's search options to find your account.” Did you can search for people on LiveJournal? Allow yourself anywhere between five minutes and the next 24 hours to search for the LiveJournal account of everyone you went to high school with.

There is a glimmer of hope if you can’t access your account’s email. “If you don't have access to an authorized email address, you may be able to restore access to your account by answering a secret question,” the FAQ page teases. “This method is only available if you set up a secret question before you lost your password.” Hopefully, your teenage self was kind to your future self and answered a secret security question.

What if you answer that question wrong? According to LiveJournal, “If you answer incorrectly 3 times in a row, the system will prevent you from resetting the password for an additional 5 days.”

As for those of us with no memory of their account name or password, no access to their old email, no secret question? “There is no way for LiveJournal to restore your control over an account if you cannot reset your password using the above methods.” It’s painful, I know. But chances are no one is looking for your freshman year feelings on LiveJournal, no one is going to dig up that old blog post where you confessed your feelings for Steven B. It’s going to be fine.

“In this case,” the FAQ page states, “you will have to create a new account if you wish to continue using LiveJournal.” Do you dare start the cycle all over again?