Accidentally Deleted My GitHub Account — Any Way to Recover a Project or Repo Clone?

[franagl]

Hi everyone,

I’m reaching out in a bit of a panic and hope someone here might have advice or ideas.

I recently accidentally deleted my GitHub account, which was connected to a platform called Lovable, where I was building a full-stack project. The project lived entirely inside Lovable, but it relied on GitHub for the repository. I never had the chance to make a local clone or backup before deleting the account (which I now realize was a huge mistake).

Now that the GitHub account is gone, Lovable shows an error when trying to access the project (“Sorry, we ran into an issue starting the live preview!”), and I’ve lost access to everything I built. I’ve already contacted GitHub Support and Lovable Support, but I thought I’d also ask here:

Is there any way to:

• Retrieve a copy of the repo that was linked to my now-deleted GitHub account?
• Recover a git clone or archive of the project, even if read-only?

This project means a lot to me, and I’d be beyond grateful for any guidance, tricks, or Hail Mary options I might try.

Thanks so much in advance to anyone who takes the time to reply. I’ve definitely learned the hard way to never delete first and ask questions later.

Best,
Francisco

[Axel-DaMage]

Hello.

The only thing you can do is to speak with github support, try to log into the account to see if for some reason you can get in but i doubt it.

[franagl]

Hey Axel, thanks for your message. Already sent an email to GitHub Support, waiting for their reply. This happened yesterday, aren't they suppose to "save" info for 90 days? I also created the account again, with the same email in hopes to be helpful somehow.

What I really needs is to recover the repo, not the actual account. Just the repo with the entire code.

[Axel-DaMage]

Yes, github documentation (Restoring a deleted repository) says: "A deleted repository can be restored within 90 days, unless the repository was part of a fork network that is not currently empty."

https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/creating-and-managing-repositories/restoring-a-deleted-repository

For now, you just need to wait for a response, I'm thinking on some things that might help but the main option is to wait for an answer.

You could search on wayback machine (just an idea, idk if it would work) and try to search for a cloned version of the repo (even though you said it was never cloned locally)

I hope this helps and good luck, at least you learned that you should always have backups

[datumradix]

Any luck?

[kadirnisic123]

well his account is deleted noit hias reposytory

[Mursith-Sharma]

1. GitHub Account Deletion and Recovery
   GitHub allows account recovery but only within a limited timeframe.
   If you deleted your account recently (usually within 30 days), contact GitHub Support immediately and explain the situation in detail. Sometimes they can restore the account and its repositories. The sooner you reach out, the better the chance.

2. If GitHub Cannot Restore the Account or Repo
   Unfortunately, once an account and its repos are fully deleted, GitHub does not keep backups for users to retrieve.

If the repository was private, no one else has access unless you shared it.

If the repo was public, there’s a slim chance someone forked it, or a cached version might exist somewhere (e.g., GitHub Archive or Google cache). But this is unlikely and usually partial.

3. Regarding Lovable Platform
   Since your project lived inside Lovable but relied on GitHub repos:

Ask Lovable Support if they keep backups or snapshots of your project in their system.

Some platforms maintain automated backups or snapshots for disaster recovery.

See if they can export any project data, even if the live preview fails.

4. Alternative “Hail Mary” options
   Check any email notifications, project invites, or CI/CD logs that might have attachments or links to snapshots of your code.

If you shared your repo or code with collaborators, check if they have a clone.

Check local machines or cloud IDEs you used — any cached local copies?

Search your email or cloud storage for zip files or backups.

[ghostinhershell]

Hi @franagl,

As @Axel-DaMage responded above, the best place to go for answers to account-specific questions like this one is opening a ticket on our Support page.

Note that the community is unable to assist with nor escalate your ticket, but we can assure you it is in the right place. It will be answered in the order it was received based on our team's resources and the amount of tickets ahead of yours.

As no other Community Discussions team members will be able to provide additional help with account related questions I am going to close this discussion.

Thank you!