Have brought this up before, thought it was worth it again. has anyone ever had success in recovering an old Gmail address? IE you had it, deleted it, and got it back.

NOT the content......merely the address.

I tried and failed.

I had one of the first Gmail accounts because of a Google project that I was involved with. I registered "eiffelgmail.com" before Google decided that was not acceptable; that I had to use my own name "roger.brownegmail.com". So I deleted "eiffel" and registered "roger.browne" according to the instructions Google gave.

Then, towards the end of 2003, I got a second chance because Google gave a Gmail invitation to all Google Answers Researchers. (They called it a "Christmas Present".) At the time, the Gmail docs said that old addresses would become available again nine months after deletion. So I counted the days carefully and checked often, but I never saw the "eiffel" address become available again.

Does this help? I guess it depends how you deleted it...

<< I accidentally deleted Gmail service from my Google Account. Can I recover my Gmail username?

As long as you haven't deleted your entire Google Account, you may be able to regain use of your Gmail username by following these steps:

   1. Sign in at https://www.google.com/accounts using the email address currently associated with your Google account.

   Note: If you deleted Gmail service from your account, but didn't delete your entire account, you'll most likely still be able to sign in with what was your secondary email address (now your primary username). If you're not able to sign in with this email address, you may have deleted your entire account. In this case, you won't be able to recover your Gmail username.

   2. While still signed in, visit www.gmail.com and click Sign up for Gmail. You'll be taken to a Gmail sign-up form, and your old Gmail username will be pre-populated in the username field.

   3. Complete the form, enter your existing Google Account password, and click Continue.

After you complete this process, you should be able to send and receive emails with this Gmail account again. >>

http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=67422

Doesn't work. Maybe Garrett knows someone inside Google that can restore the add to the database?