Are Old Gamertags Reserved After Changing Them?

KitsonSherman · Mar 9, 2022

Hello, so recently, I've been on an old mission to find my old xbox account and in the process, found an old Microsoft account of mine that was inactive that I figured could have been the old account. It prompted me to set a gamer tag so I did; I used my username everywhere which is fairly unique so I got it without the numbers.

However, right after I did so, I found the login info the the actual old account. Easy solution, I figured. I'd change the gamer tag from the first account, making it available for me to change my second account to and be able to have it nice without the suffix numbers. For some strange reason, however, the name was not available without the number for the second account despite no other account having it (that I'm aware of; I suppose someone could have taken it in the small bit of 20 minutes in-between but my next part suggests against that).

I found this strange but ultimately accepted it. However, then I went back to the old account and realized that if I wanted to change my gamer tag there, it would show the username without numbers still as available if I wanted to change back to it.

So long story short- I'm wonder if there is some type of short period of unavailability for gamer tags so people who changed from it could change back if they decide they still want it? I looked everywhere and could not find any information about this :') If so, do you know about how long it is and if not, any other explanations to why it may show unavailable to my old account but not to my new account which used to have it?

EDIT: Went and tried it again on the older account and the suffix-less username was available!! Which implies that there is a period of some type of holding of the old gamertag when you change it for a few hours (for me it was around 3 hours!)

:)

KitsonSherman

If you have an account and have a Gamertag without suffix #12345 and by chance exchange this Gamertag, the one that was exchanged will be retained by the system, neither you nor anyone else can choose it, so if you choose the same name it will come with the names.

This makes sense thank you-but I wonder why the newer account where the gamertag without the prefix it still shows as an available name to change to if I want to. If it's being retained to the system shouldn't it be void for all users, regardless of gamertag history? The fact that it was available to the one that had it and not the the other account is what is baffling me.

EDIT: Went and tried it again on the older account and the suffix-less username was available!! Which implies that there is a period of some type of holding of the old gamertag when you change it for a few hours (for me it was around 3 hours!)

Georges C.

Hello, first it's a pleasure to be able to help you today.

My name is welcome to the community.

Hello KitsonSherman, actually the information about the Gamertags does not appear clearly on the internet, but basically works like this, if you have an account and have a Gamertag without suffix #12345 and by chance exchange this Gamertag, the one that was exchanged will be retained by the system, neither you nor anyone else can choose it, so if you choose the same name it will come with the names.

If you wonder how long it is retained by the system, this is not disclosed and we can not speculate when time, so if you want to choose a Gamertag without suffixes, you will have to choose a new name that has never been chosen or write it in a different way.

kyle_m4496

Hi Mat. My name is Kyle and I'm an independent advisor.

When you change your gamertag, the old tag is reserved for an unspecified amount of time, before being freed up for other accounts to use. When did you change the gamertag?

Thanks,
Kyle

GC328

To the best of my knowledge, yes. If you change your gamertag, that frees up your old tag up for others to use. So I would advise to create a new silver account to reserve that gamertag. Hope this help.

Glenmere

Heya!

I see you've got a few replies already. I was actually thinking of changing my gamertag earlier today with the new changes until I read this: https://support.xbox.com/en-US/my-account/manage-gamertag-and-profile/gamertag-updates-faq It seems like if you
change your gamertag to an original name, it won't add any annoying numbers, but if there is already a "Warrior" (in your case), you would have to deal with the numbers. The first time I changed my gamertag, I used my brother's old account to reserve the tag
just in case. I don't think there would be a way around paying for another change, but you shouldn't have an issue getting your old name back. Perhaps wait a few hours after the initial change to reclaim the old gamertag. Sorry for the inconvenience! Keep
us posted on your decision. Happy Thanksgiving!

Are Old Gamertags Reserved After Changing Them?