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Gordon,
I applaud you for realizing that you have two accounts and wanting to just have one. That is the way facebook is supposed to work … one person, one account. Unfortunately there is no way to easily merge them. You can however download all the information from the lessser one, delete it, then manually add those friends from the deleted account back in to the remaining account. If you own any other Facebook entities like a Group, or a Page, make sure that the account that is the Admin for those entities is the one you’re keeping. If not, add the good account as an Admin to those pages.
Here is Facebook’s official help on the topic of Merging Multiple accounts.
10:56 am

February 18, 2019

It is now possible to merge two FB accounts providing they have similar names and content. However, it would seem that Facebook chooses which is the dominant account and merges the other under that name. How can I ensure that the account I’d prefer becomes my dominant account and not the irritating alternative version? Once the process is started there’s no going back yet FB doesn’t declare which will be the final outcome??
I checked and, according to the Facebook help page, you still cannot merge two Facebook accounts. I wonder if you’re confusing a Facebook account with a Facebook “Page” – two pages can be merged.
What’s the difference between a page and an account? An account is a person – it has a person’s name, contact info, and friends. A Page is usually a business, or other organization. A person is an admin of a page. If you do mean to merge two pages, then I’m not sure which one gets deleted, you are asked simply for the two pages. But, whatever page is left, the name can be changed to whatever you want.
2:52 pm

February 18, 2019

Thank you, but still confused. Sometime ago I lost access to my Facebook account Sylvan Bentley (SB). I didn’t know why and couldn’t figure out what I had done or how to recover it. After some weeks’ frustration finally hit on the idea of setting up a new account reversing my names – Bentley Sylvan (BS) This worked fine but didn’t feel like me, esp. when strangers on groups I joined addressed me as ‘Bentley’ thinking it was my first name. Then I somehow found my way back into the original account as Sylvan Bentley. Then I found out how to add what I thought was an ‘account’ under the little triangle at the top right. So my first account SB now appears as a ‘page’ under that triangle and if I want to access what I thought of as my original account I click here from the BS account. (Hope all that makes sense?) What I’d like now is to get rid of my BS account and resurrect my original ‘Sylvan Bentley’ account which is my real name.
My original Question was about merging these two. If I delete the BS account completely do I lose access to the original Sylvan Bentley account. So very confused about all this tech stuff. If anyone can help I thought the Geeks can!! Please.
If BS is actually a page, then yes – deleting the page will have no effect on your account. But I’m still confused too. Click the image below and tell me if that helps you know what is an account and what is a page. #1 is where you see your account, #2 is where you see your pages.
Can you try to access your profile directly? Do you know the username and password for your account? Go to Facebook.com using an incognito browser – if you don’t know what that is … click the 3-dots in the upper right (when you’re on a computer using Chrome browser) You should see an option “New incognito window” click that. Now you are at a browser where you are not logged in anywhere, so you can test to see if you know your Facebook login. Go to Facebook.com and login with the email and password that you think is right. Can you get in? and What account shows up at the top?
2:29 am

February 18, 2019

Thank you for explaining Incognito. Yes, SB is an account but I cannot log in because I’ve forgotten the password.. probably reason I couldnt access it orginally. I know it’s mine because there’s no personal info entered. Those were the days when I was very scared of social media but curious to find out what it was all about. I lurked a bit but saw no reason to post. Not knowing how to find the missing password or set a new one, it seemed simpler to open a new account as BS.
Ok, so we’ve determined that SB is an account. Actually, I can search Facebook and find Sylvan Bentley’s profile. It has a picture of a pig?
If you know what email you used when you set up that account, you should be able to get back in. I would still use an incognito browser, go to facebook.com then, in the upper right where it has a space for email/username and password, click the link that reads “forgot account” When you enter the email address, they will send a code to that address which will allow you to get in and create a new password.
If that doesn’t work, or you’ve already tried that before, check out this Facebook help page and try everything there.
If nothing works, you can give up on the old SB account and just just the BS one, but you can change your name:
- Click the triangle in upper right (on computer)
- Under General Account Settings you should see Name
- Click Edit – at the right end of the name line
- Type the name you want in first and last, click Review Change and then Done or Ok
Note: you can only change your name once every 60 days, so make sure you type it in right. Also, after you’ve settled in with whatever account you end up with make sure to enter your cell phone number in the settings. That way, you’ll have a way to confirm your identity if this should ever happen again.
Hope that helps
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