Trying to recover my old Xbox Live account so I can use it again

Julian W · Jan 23, 2022

When I was a young teenager I had an XBox Live account that I used for a number of years on my Xbox 360 to play and buy games, get achievements, etc. I haven't used the account in about 10 years because at some point back then I had to log into it on my Xbox 360 but didn't know the email address that was used to set the account up. (It had been set up by my older brother and he didn't remember the email address he used and had probably set it up with a burner email.) Most likely no phone number was linked to the account either. I made a few unsuccessful attempts to recover the account then but gave up and instead took over my Dad's Live account (which I still use to this day) after buying an Xbox One. I am again attempting to recover the old account as I have a large number of games that I purchased (hundreds of dollars worth) that I would like to once again have access to. I did a lot of research online and found the pertinent information on Microsoft's website but have run into a major obstacle: Not only do I not know the email address that was used to set up my old Xbox Live account, I also have no idea what Microsoft account, if any, is linked to it and, without at least one of these, I can't proceed with resetting my account online. It's a Catch-22 situation. This seems to be a common scenario from my online research. I called Microsoft tech support a few years ago for assistance and they wouldn't give this email information out even though I knew my old gamertag and the serial number of my 360.

In fact, I still have this Xbox 360 and the gamertag associated with my old Xbox Live account still appears in the upper right hand corner of my TV but no email address is displayed. Of course, I can't log in because I don't know the email address (or password). My cousin recently logged into her Xbox Live account for the first time in many years and my old gamertag still shows up in her friends list (I am listed as being offline) so my account evidently still exists.

There must be a way to recover the email address for my old XBox Live account. Am I missing something here? Is there a way to access the files on the 360's harddrive or some other workaround? I would appreciate any help because I really don't want to lose the hundreds of dollars of games, achievements, etc. that are locked up in my old account.

:)

Jesse E'

Hello, My name is Jesse. I'm an Independent Advisor and a member of the Microsoft community and I'd love to assist you today.

I'm afraid only way to recover an Xbox account is via the account recovery form here https://account.live.com/password/reset

You can try all the emails you remember or if you had a phone number attached to the account, you can use that too.

Sadly, an account cannot be recovered with the gamertag alone.

Sasha Zaraoui (Stude

Hello ! So basically I have the same problem and I’m trying to recover my old account and the number in my old account is wrong so basically I pressed the button (I don’t have any of these) and I tried to answer all the questions, but my device is blocked and I cannot login into my old account, but the problem that my email with this old account is working but say there is no option that I can recover my password from the mail that I’m using it on my old account so yeah basically I want to recover my old account but I cannot because the number there I s wrong and I really need to recover my account and again my email which is the old account. Like I’m trying to recover my old Microsoft account on my email, but there is no recover button or like a reset the password from the mail

Jeremy2085

If you have your account information then you should be able too recover your old gamertag with your email address and password that you use for your microsoft account. Try searching for it on xbox live too first off find the right information you need
then try too recover the account off xbox live so that you will be able too use the account again.

Allebas

Are you still able to login into your account with the old email? If so, try the process of changing/adding the email address again. If you cant sign into your account you can try this link to recover your account https://support.xbox.com/en-US/my-account/microsoft-account/lost-password-solution.

II Mr Jonezy II

Are you recovering your old account with the correct email and password, because if you are then it would have recovered that account, I advise you to try remember your associated windows live ID with that account and then try to recover it with the correct
windows live ID, it should recover your account if you are using the correct ID for the account.

Trying to recover my old Xbox Live account so I can use it again