Over the course of our long and storied lives online, most of us have signed up for many online accounts, only to have them fall by the wayside, unused forever.
Now, the email address or a phone number you surrendered for registration can be misused. It's time to ask yourself, “How do I find all accounts linked to my email address?”
It's best to revisit all your accounts to update your credentials or deactivate them, but it's not always as easy as hitting the “Find My Account” button. Here are some ways you can find all accounts linked to your email address or phone number.
1. Find Accounts Linked to Email for Free
If you're prone to signing in to apps and websites through an email platform's quick authorization button, chances are, you won't have to dig too deep to search accounts by email and review your most recently created accounts. We recommend using two-factor authentication methods to keep your accounts secure and prevent unauthorized access.
For accounts that you've created by “Signing Up With Google”, you can simply head over to Gmail's security settings. From there, you can go through the list of connected apps to edit or revoke their access.
To visit this section on Google, go to the My Account dashboard and click the Security tab on the left.
Scroll down until you come across Third-party apps with account access and hit Manage Third-Party Access.
From here, you'll be able to manage the settings for each app you've connected to your account. You'll also be able to see some information about what the app has access to.
To revoke access for any of the accounts listed, click on the app or website's name and hit Remove Access.
2. Find Social Sign-Ins With Facebook and Twitter
You can also browse all the apps and websites you've logged into using your social media accounts.
To do so on Twitter, head on over to the More option from the sidebar. Next, tap Settings and privacy > Security and account access > Apps and sessions. You'll be able to check out any accounts that you have linked through your Twitter profile.
On platforms like Facebook, you can specifically decide what you want to share or cut off. For instance, you can stay connected to a third-party account while disabling its access to the pages that you like on Facebook.
3. Search Your Inbox for Account Verification Messages
Another method is to hunt down the confirmation emails from each account creation in your inbox.
Search for common subject lines these services send you whenever you register for a new account. A few that work well include “signing up” and “thank you”, and keywords like “confirm” or “confirming”.
You can also use Gmail's search operators and keywords for filtering specific subject lines. “Subject: verify” will fetch all the emails with subject lines containing the word “verify”, to name one example. This allows you to discover roughly every app you've linked to your email address.
If you have multiple email addresses, you probably have more than one account associated with them. Trying to keep track of these accounts can be a daunting task. However, services like Parserr or MailParser can make things easier for you.
These websites can help you extract specific data from your emails and organize the results into a convenient spreadsheet based on your criteria or rules. If you're determined to find all accounts by email, however, it can save you a lot of time.
4. Use Third-Party Account Deletion Tools
If you've ever wanted to delete your account from a website, but had no idea how to go about it, here's some help.
JustDelete.Me is an easy-to-use tool that lets you search for all of your online accounts across multiple platforms in one place. It's free to use.
The website shows a grid of sites and links you directly to the page on the site where you can delete your account. You can find all kinds of sites on there—dating sites, social media, music streaming services and more.
If you want to delete your account from a site, click on the Show Info link for that site, and then follow the instructions that appear on the page. The links are also color-coded based on how easy or hard it will be for you to delete your account.
5. Find All Online Accounts With a Username
If there's a username you often enter for new accounts, you can tap into Namechk. The domain finder and username checker tool will scan for a username's availability across dozens of platforms, as well as in domain-form.
Just type in your most commonly chosen username in the search bar at the top, and Namechk will tell you if it has been taken. It's easy and completely free.
6. Check Your Browser's Saved Accounts
Whenever you fill out a form field on the internet, your browser caches your input, so you don't have to type in your info manually the next time around. This applies to email addresses and passwords, too.
While this is a useful feature that can help you populate forms quickly and effortlessly, it's a good idea to manage your autofill settings from time to time to double-check or update your information.
You can visit your browser's settings and go through the list to find any accounts associated with email addresses long-past that you may have forgotten about. Your success will depend on how long you've been using the browser, so you might have to revisit some of your previous browsers.
On Google Chrome, the option will be found under Settings > Autofill > Passwords. You can browse the entries, update them, and delete them if you don't want them.
Mozilla Firefox users can navigate into their Settings. Through Privacy & Security, they can access their Login and Passwords stash. Their Saved Logins will be where they can find all online accounts.
7. Search the Internet Archives
Have you ever had accounts on websites that are no longer around? Maybe you signed up for services, tried out a few sites and didn’t stick with it, or were part of a community onboarding.
You can use the Wayback Machine to find archived information. It is a service provided by the Internet Archive to help you find any old webpages or accounts that have been changed or ceased to exist.
Sort Your Online Accounts With a Password Manager
It's unlikely you will be able to track down every online account you've ever created. These solutions will help you find accounts linked to an email without asking for every single off-the-cuff account creation that you've left in your wake.
Once you have done so, it's best to make the transition to a secure password manager. You'll be able to keep tabs on your online presence without the hassle or the worry associated with doing it on your own.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7rq3KnqysnZ%2Bbe6S7zGirmp9fm7avsIyao6VlkZiwsMHNrapmpJmjuKawjK2mZp2dlratecCdm6udo6h8