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Locked out of my Bitbucket account because my university email was permanently deleted - I know my p

Locked out of my Bitbucket account because my university email was permanently deleted - I know my p

Hello,

I'm locked out of my Atlassian/Bitbucket account and I'm hoping someone from Atlassian can advise on the proper recovery process.

Situation:
- I know my Bitbucket username and password.
- The login is successful.
- After entering my password, Atlassian requires an email verification code.
- The verification code is being sent to my former university email:
[REDACTED]
- That university email has been permanently deactivated and cannot be recovered.

This is my Bitbucket workspace/repository:
[REDACTED]

I can also provide additional proof of ownership such as:
- Repository names
- Workspace name
- Git commit history
- Local Git repository
- SSH keys (if needed)

I am not asking anyone to bypass security. I would just like to know the correct recovery process or how I can reach Atlassian Account Support to verify ownership and update my email address.

Thank you.

1 answer

1 vote

Hi @bharatramesh2601

Welcome to the community

I would advice you to go to https://support.atlassian.com and open a ticket under "Account & billing" → "I can't log in to my account." Pick the option about not having access to your verification email.

In the ticket, mention your Bitbucket username, the workspace URL, and that the university email is permanently deactivated (not just inaccessible — that distinction matters to their support team).

They'll ask you to verify ownership. The things you already listed — repo names, commit history, SSH keys — are exactly what they'll want. Having the local .git config with your author email matching the account is usually the clincher. Turnaround in my experience has been 2–5 business days. They'll migrate your account to a new email once ownership is confirmed.

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Hi @Ajay _view26_

May I know where you have gotten this information from? Whilst options exist for verifying the ownership of an account when there are ownership disputes, it is not guaranteed that a user locked out from their account will be recoverable due to our security policies.

Thanks,

- Ben (Bitbucket Cloud Support)

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Like • Ajay _view26_ likes this

Hi @bharatramesh2601

Unfortunately - you need access to the email inbox for the account that you are trying to login to. This is not specific to Bitbucket Cloud, as the verification process concerns your Atlassian account.

This is a strict security requirement which cannot be bypassed, and this is used to protect users from unauthorised access to their accounts.

You will need to reach out to the university and ask them to temporarily re-enable your email inbox to allow you to perform the verification checks - once you're back in, you can then change the email associated with your account:

https://support.atlassian.com/atlassian-cloud/kb/change-atlassian-account-email-addresses/

If this is not successful, you will, unfortunately, need to push any local backups of your repositories to your new workspace.

Thank you.

- Ben (Bitbucket Cloud Support)

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@Ben

My bad! I assumed a genuine reason for lockout would be a valid reason to unlock the account.

Regards

Ajay

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Locked out of my Bitbucket account because my university email was permanently deleted - I know my p

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