If you want to get ahead as a personal brand or while growing a business, it’s important to have a strong social media presence. But when you jump on Instagram or Twitter to register your chosen username, you’ll almost certainly find that your handle is already taken. That’s because more than 1.6 billion handles on Instagram (and over a billion on TikTok) have already been claimed. Don’t give up, however, if your chosen username belongs to an inactive account. There are ways to claim an inactive Twitter username, Instagram handle or account from most of the major social media platforms.
What Are the Signs of an Inactive Account?
The platforms themselves are reluctant to publish the numbers, but estimates put the percentage of inactive accounts in double figures. Inactive accounts share many similarities with catfish and scam accounts. There’s either no photo or recent photos, and very little in the way of bio information, posts or followers.
An account could be inactive for a number of reasons:
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- The user simply forgets about an account they created. The average American has seven social media accounts, after all. You can find out any accounts still registered to your own email address or phone number with a quick Spokeo search. Surprise yourself!
- People die. It’s a sobering thought, but the lives we curate online will outlast us. You can ask Facebook and Instagram to “memorialize” accounts that have reached the final curtain, and Twitter will delete an account if a friend or family member can provide valid ID and a copy of a death certificate.
- Investors register usernames and handles in order to flip them for money. An instantly recognizable name that matches a celebrity, TV show or location can be worth thousands of dollars and there are thriving marketplaces for buying usernames (but beware of scammers).
How to Get Your Hands on a Handle
The simplest way to claim an inactive username is to hope that the owner is a) real; b) alive; and c) online, and to reach out directly.
- Leave a comment beneath their posts.
- Slide into their DMs with a message.
- Check for any contact details listed in their bio (like an email address or website).
What’s your pitch? It’s probably best to appeal to their goodwill by explaining why the handle is important to you, and asking them to sacrifice or change theirs. But, there are several ways you can go in heavy as well.
How to claim an inactive Instagram username
Both Instagram and Facebook are operated by Meta, so the process is similar for claiming a handle. You’ll have to reach out to customer support to report an account as inactive and wait for your claim to be reviewed. If your claim is successful, you can then recreate your handle from scratch using your login credentials.
There’s no official word on the subject, but it is believed that Instagram deletes inactive accounts after one to two years. So if the user name is still live, that means the owner has at least logged in, scrolled or liked a post relatively recently.
How to claim or change a Twitter handle
The controversy is still raging about Twitter’s intention to purge thousands of inactive accounts. The company advises users to log on at least every 30 days to avoid being flagged as inactive. Again, contact customer support to stake your claim.
Like many other platforms, Twitter offers “blue tick,” or verified status. If you’re a business or public figure whose trademarked or copyrighted name is being used by an inactive account, you can file a trademark claim with customer support to wrest back control. They will ask you to prove your ID and trademark credentials.
Claiming an inactive TikTok username
Company policy is to delete inactive accounts after 180 days, which is an eternity in TikTok years. As above, you should make your request through customer support. One catch is that TikTok allows any user to change their name once every 30 days (and go back to previous versions). Therefore, if you want to claim an inactive TikTok handle, make sure you haven’t changed your own username within the last 30 days.
Inactive accounts on other popular platforms
Snapchat doesn’t delete inactive accounts, so there may be a backlog of “ghost” handles to navigate, whereas Pinterest will make inactive accounts available as soon as 14 days after the original user deletes their account.
How to Find the Owner Using Spokeo
Seasoned social media users will know that even the most popular apps are infamous for their poor customer support. Getting a ban overturned, reporting a scammer or securing justice for a stolen trademark can be a slow, frustrating experience.
So there’s good news if you heave a sigh each time you read “contact customer support” in the previous paragraphs. You can bypass the process entirely and get straight to the facts with Spokeo. All you need to do is reverse search the details available, whether it’s the phone number or email address linked to the account.
If your search returns a match, you can then get in contact with the inactive user through your channel of choice without having to go through the platform itself. You’re not spooking anyone with Spokeo, either. Any information you uncover is publicly available.