Retrieving old certifications from an old email address

Hi Foust,

Microsoft has a dedicated process to help you recover your certification history and link it to a personal account so you can get them onto your resume.

Here is the step-by-step process to get them back:

1. Contact Microsoft Credentials Support

If you are completely locked out, you will need a Microsoft support agent to manually locate your old profile and migrate it to a personal account.

• Go to the Microsoft Credentials Support Forum.
• Open a support request or post a brief message stating: "I lost access to my former work email and need to migrate my old certification profile to my personal Microsoft account."
• A support moderator will respond and initiate a Private Message with you to securely gather your personal details without exposing them to the public forum.

2. Gather Your Verification Details

To prove ownership of the old account, the support agent will ask you for specific details. Try to have as much of this ready as possible:

• Your full legal name (as it would have appeared on the certificates).
• The exact old work email address.
• The name of the employer you worked for at the time.
• Your current personal Microsoft account email (where you want the certifications moved).
• Any approximate dates of when you took the exams, or an MCID (Microsoft Certification ID) if you happen to have it written down on an old document.

Certifications can only be accessed through an active Microsoft Learn profile that is linked to at least one login account. If access to the old email (and its Microsoft account) is lost and cannot be recovered, the certifications in that profile cannot be transferred or restored.

Key points from the policies:

1. Access requires a valid login account
   • Access to a Learn profile and its credentials “requires that you are able to sign in with at least one valid Microsoft Learn login account.”
   • If access to the personal Microsoft account used for that profile is lost and no alternate work or school account was added, access to that profile and its data is lost.
2. Microsoft Credentials Support cannot recover that account or move its data
   • It is explicitly stated that Microsoft Credentials Support “cannot assist with recovery of personal Microsoft accounts and cannot transfer or restore the contents of a Learn profile you are unable to access.”
3. What can still be tried
   • If there is any chance to recover the old Microsoft account (for example, by using username or password recovery), use the self-service options:
     • Forgotten your Microsoft account username
     • Reset a forgotten Microsoft Account Password
   • If sign-in to that account becomes possible again, the Learn profile and its certifications will be available, and a transcript can be shared from the Learn profile or Certification Dashboard.

If the old Microsoft account truly cannot be recovered through the self-service account recovery options, the old certifications in that profile cannot be retrieved or merged into a new profile.

References:

• Accessing your Learn profile
• Frequently asked questions (profile)
• Frequently asked questions (transcript)