Merging Accounts Question Roundup

Question

So, what's the deal with merging accounts?

1. What information do they have to confirm in order to merge? I know a screenshot of you logged into one of the accounts is required but what other info do they need to confirm you own both?
2. What gets / can get merged? For example, is it only badges and reputation or is it more like questions, answers, comments, etc?
3. Can you ask them to customize? For example, only merge badges or only merge reputation.
4. Can you merge more than two accounts at once?
5. What do they mean by "merge"? For example if I wanted to merge this account with my main account would they merge all the data to my main account and then delete this account or would this account just be empty and have no data?
6. Can you tell them which account to merge and which one to keep?

Answer 1

1. No, that is not remotely true, and we have never asked anyone for screenshots of the accounts before. Depending on what accounts need merged, what information you have, and which accounts you can access, the process for getting accounts merged is very different. You'll need to use the contact form to get further instructions. It's not worthwhile to document them all on Meta because it's not useful documentation until you know what you need to do anyways.

   However, if you have access to the email accounts used for both profiles, the process is entirely automated and you don't need anything other than to login to each email and click a link.

2. The merge process simply moves all of your posts and comments to the account with the lower user ID. Reputation is automatically recalculated so that it matches all the posts now attached. Badges are not transferred, but will be automatically re-awarded as the processes run again.

3. No, the merge system doesn't work that way.

4. No. If you have more than two accounts, you'll need to complete the merge process for two accounts, and then complete it again for the combined account and the third account, and so on. If your merge ends up requiring manual intervention, you can list all the profiles in one request after completing any verification steps we provide.

5. Once everything is moved to the account with the lower user ID, the empty profile is deleted.

6. No. We always merge into the lower user ID (however, if you have many profiles, depending on when each profile was created, the individual profiles may not always end up on the lower user ID - that isn't something we control, but is something the system automatically does on its own).