It said after "12 months" in your "help center" that names could be recycled. Please do so since it is in your policy.

The name that I use in our Clan has already been taken when I created my Twitch account which was slightly disappointing cause the person who uses it follows nobody, has 0 followers so it's literally a barren account, been registered once but never used. Maybe after 90 days of not-usage you could just "disable" the name, so it's open for others again and if the person comes back they can just change it once?

Definitely. There are a finite amount of possible names in the world that would make sence or be pronouncable. Lets say in a decades time, it's going to be nigh on impossible to get a non-used username as a solid majority of names are taken by inactive accounts.

For some people who already are recognizable by their username on other platforms are unable to use twitch with the same recognizable name for this very reason.

I see no harm in inactive for 12 months, then they get an email giving them 7 days to login or their name will be freed up and their username will then be renamed to <old username>_inactive. When they next login or click the link after 7 days they will be asked to rename their account or the account will such be deleted, either or.

Hello Admin, please recovery my account of BrunoBassi https://www.twitch.tv/brunobassi yes? thank you

I'm pretty sure I forgot to convert my old Justin.tv name, so my main internet name is locked. Would love to be able to use this name, as I have it already on Twitter, Instagram, steam, origin, etc.... You get the point!

I'm in the same situation. My PSN is being used (not used) by an inactive Twitch account. No followers. No views. No broadcasts. I'm somewhat known in the Destiny community by my PSN. I'm heavily involved in streams of another channel, but I cannot build my own brand. Sucks man.

To keep these comments alive, PLEASE find some way to release old usernames that have been deleted or never have been used. I really want my channel to be my Gamertag but it appears the Twitch account with that name has long been deleted. :(

I hope they will add a feature that gives unused names free after a certain time...

Endless good names are just sitting around with 200 views max.... I mean come on. These people are little kids who thought, "Oh i'm gonna play video games all day and be a sensation like summit1g!!!" In reality a lot of us who are artists and do other things want these names that haven't been used and some for YEARS. Please start recycling names that are deleted, violated terms, or are inactive for 6+ months.

Why is twitch so strict with usernames? Looking at their help page https://help.twitch.tv/customer/portal/articles/1015624-username-rename-and-recycling-policies shows that in essence once a username is takeing its never avalable again, even if the account is errased. I currently am after a Username that is in use by someone that looks to have made an account a long time ago just as a test, it is following one channel, has no videos, no past broadcasts and no bio info. It sucks that now i cant get that name because someone a while back made an account on a whim

I've tried registering all possible variations of my name and nothing. All of them are also supposedly available, but when it comes to registering I'm not allowed to. Please make unused usernames available, there's so many people interested in using them. I really wanted to grow a channel without having to use a silly made up username that means nothing to me as a streamer and more importantly, does not represent me.

You've been reviewing this over a year now. Any decision yet?

I have my username blocked from JustinTV too, it's really a pain!
You should delete the accounts or make them recoverable!

justin.tv was shut down a while ago now. at least make them available now since it is impossible to migrate them nowdays and all they do is taking away lots of names. (even one i want for persistence)

:/ this is a thing. seriously.

Signed up to Justin.tv with my primary online identity many years ago. Very sad I am not allowed to reuse that identity here at Twitch due to database dependencies. =(

Been waiting for this for some time. I don't even remember creating a JTV account but my regular username (that I use for everything) is indeed tied to my email address. I will continue holding out on creating a Twitch account until I can use that username again. I think it seems pretty ridiculous that these can't be released, or at least reused with the same email address or something.

Just free the unused nicknames already ffs. I have a big Youtube channel where I own the name I want, same for twitter, instagram, everything except Twitch. I refuse to add some stupid numbers or something on my nickname so I can register, it kills my SEO and looks ugly.

I could be able to bring traffic (money) to this site, but my nickname was registered years ago by someone else which has 0 views on his profile... good business Twitch.

Really wish this was a thing. There's a username that only has 1 view(me) no followers, and not following anyone. Literally just holding the name. It wasn't even available when twitch launched because it was a justin.tv account. Life's hard.

At this point, what is the point of all those Justin.tv accounts if they can no longer be retrieved? I feel those are definitely the most inactive of usernames.