Facebook Send ID to Recover Account: Step-by-Step

Sending Facebook a copy of your ID is the last door in the recovery process — and for most people it is the only door left, because the hacker already changed the email and phone number.

The problem is that Facebook's instructions are split across two separate help articles that never reference each other. One explains how to recover an account. The other explains which IDs are accepted. Neither tells a locked-out person how to get from the first to the second. This guide joins them into one path, then covers the parts nobody documents: why photos get rejected, what happens to your ID afterwards, and what to do when the review keeps failing.

Why Facebook asks you to send an ID

There are two different reasons, and they lead to different outcomes.

Facebook asks for an ID mainly to confirm the account belongs to you — so that nobody else gets into it — and to confirm your name matches the name you use in everyday life; it also helps prevent scams, phishing and foreign political influence, according to Facebook's identity confirmation guide.

Separately, Facebook triggers a security check or identity confirmation when it suspects the account's security might have been affected. If you are asked for your date of birth during that check, give the date of birth you provided when you signed up for Facebook — not your real one, if the two differ — and if you cannot remember your password you can request a new one at /recover/initiate, per Facebook's security check help page.

That distinction matters. If the prompt is a name confirmation, a document showing your name is enough. If it is an ownership confirmation after a suspected compromise, expect the fuller last-resort path described below.

Try these before you send anything

Uploading an ID is slow and, as the sections below show, frequently fails on the first attempt. Exhaust the faster routes first.

1. Reset the password, if you still receive messages. Facebook's first recovery step is to reset your password if you can still access the email address or mobile phone number linked to the account. If codes don't arrive, check your spam or junk folder, check your connection (you need a signal to receive the code), and wait a few minutes before requesting a new code, according to Facebook's recovery help page.

2. Use a device you have logged in from before. This is not a superstition. Meta's recovery experiences are now powered by AI across Facebook and Instagram, with systems that recognise the device you usually use and familiar locations — making it easier to confirm your identity and unlock your account, according to Meta's account recovery support hub. Recovering from a brand-new phone on a hotel Wi-Fi throws away that signal.

3. Start the hacked flow even if you weren't hacked. If you suspect your account was hacked, Facebook directs you to www.facebook.com/hacked on a device you've used to log into Facebook before, per the same recovery help page. And when you can't access the email or phone on your account, Facebook's first suggestion is to visit facebook.com/hacked even if you're not sure whether your account was compromised, according to Facebook's help page for lost contact info.

How to reach the ID upload screen when you've lost your email and phone

This is the step the SERP genuinely does not answer, and it is where most people give up. The sequence is:

Step 1 — Find the account. On a device you've used to log in before, type facebook.com/login/identify into your usual browser and enter a known email address or mobile phone number. Include the country code with the phone number, for example +1 for the US. If that doesn't work, try entering your account name or username, according to Facebook's help page for when you can't access your email or phone.

Step 2 — Declare that you've lost access. Select No longer have access to these? and follow the prompts. You may be asked to provide new contact information — and the contact information you provide must not have been used for your Facebook account before. Then follow the prompts to confirm that the account you're trying to recover belongs to you and reset your password, per the same Facebook help page.

Step 3 — Use the last-resort form if the flow dead-ends. Facebook's Account Recovery hub directs people who can't access their account email or phone to the "last resort recovery" form at facebook.com/last_resort_recovery/hacked_form/start/ — the path that leads to identity confirmation and ID upload — and says to use a device you've used to log in before for best results. Facebook notes that it will prompt you to find your hacked account, and tells you to enter your information and proceed even if you weren't hacked, according to Facebook's Account Recovery hub.

If the login page won't even find your account, you are in the situation Reddit users describe when a hacker has changed both the email and the phone number: a login loop with no visible ID upload screen. Community members point to Facebook's ID-upload contact form at m.facebook.com/help/contact/515009838910929 and the identity-article pages as the way in — community-reported in r/facebook, though the linked destinations are official Facebook pages.

Which IDs Facebook accepts

You have two routes, and the second one is the one almost nobody knows about.

To regain access to a Facebook account or confirm your name, you can send one government ID that shows your name plus date of birth, or your name plus photo. Accepted examples include a driver's license, national identity card, passport, and birth certificate, according to Facebook's identity confirmation guide.

If you don't have a government ID, Facebook accepts two different non-government IDs instead — examples include a student card, library card, refugee card, employment verification, diploma, or loyalty card — as long as at least one includes your date of birth or photo, and the names match what you want on your profile, per the same guide.

• Send only the required documents. Facebook advises submitting only what's asked for, since extra documents delay the review, according to Facebook's ID upload instructions.
• If you have no passport or driver's license, don't stall — a student card plus a diploma is a legitimate submission.

How to photograph your ID so it passes review

Most rejections are photography failures, not identity failures. Facebook lists the exact causes.

Your ID photo may be rejected if it is blurry, not well-lit, missing the required information, a picture of a screenshot or a photocopied ID, or not fully in frame, according to Facebook's identity confirmation guide.

Facebook's own procedure is short: with a camera or mobile device, take a close-up photo of your ID in a well-lit room, save the photo to your mobile device or computer, and follow the on-screen instructions to upload it, per Facebook's ID upload help page.

Run this checklist before you submit:

• Shoot the physical document, not a scan, a screenshot, or a photo of a photocopy.
• Get all four corners inside the frame, with a margin.
• Use daylight or a bright room — no flash glare across the laminate.
• Confirm your name and your date of birth (or your photo) are legible at a glance.
• Match the name on the document to the name you want on your profile.

That is a meaningful distinction: a sticky note over your ID number is fine, a blur brush in a photo editor gets you rejected.

What Facebook does with your ID after you send it

The honest answer, sourced rather than speculated:

• Storage. After you send a copy of your ID to Facebook, it will be encrypted and securely stored, according to Facebook's ID upload help page.
• Visibility. Your ID won't be visible on your profile, to friends, or to other people on Facebook. Facebook reviews IDs using both manual review and automated systems, sometimes with trusted third-party service providers, per Facebook's identity confirmation guide.
• Retention. If you're uploading an ID to get verified to run ads, or for Meta Verified, Facebook will store your ID for up to 180 days. For ads about social issues, elections or politics, or if Facebook detects potential fraud or abuse, this may be extended to up to 1 year. In some cases you can adjust how long your ID is stored in the identity confirmation settings at facebook.com/id/settings/, according to the same guide.
• Your own device. When you capture a photo of your ID, the photo might be stored on your device. Facebook itself says that for security reasons it's often better to delete this photo from your device's photo gallery after you've completed the upload, per the same guide.

That last one is Facebook's advice, not ours, and it is the step everyone skips. Delete the picture from your camera roll — and from your cloud photo backup — once the upload goes through.

Video selfie: the alternative when ID upload isn't working

Facebook's video selfie verification is an alternative identity-confirmation method to uploading an ID. It is not available everywhere — the feature page currently shows "This feature isn't currently available in your country" in some regions, as shown on Facebook's video selfie help page.

If you are offered a video selfie, take it. It resolves in a single sitting and sidesteps the document-photography failure modes entirely. If the option isn't offered, it is likely a regional restriction rather than something you did wrong.

When Facebook rejects your ID again and again

Set expectations honestly, because the official pages don't.

Reddit users report being asked to send a government ID and then getting rejected repeatedly even with clear photos of a national ID, driver's license and passport — one user reported the process taking about two weeks and still being denied, community-reported in r/facebook. That is a community-reported experience, not an official Facebook timeline, and Facebook publishes no guaranteed turnaround.

What to change between attempts, rather than resubmitting the same file:

• Switch document type — if the national ID failed, send the passport, which has a cleaner photo page.
• Switch to the two-document non-government route if the government route keeps failing.
• Retake the photo in daylight on a plain, dark surface.
• Retry from a device and location you've used before, so trusted-device recognition can work in your favour.
• Confirm the name you're asking for matches the document exactly.

There is also a support channel most people never open. Meta offers a 24/7 AI support assistant inside Facebook and Instagram that can guide users through recovery steps and take actions like submitting appeals, updating settings, and resolving issues from start to finish — and chats can only be initiated by the user, never by Meta or by scammers, according to Meta's account recovery support hub.

Recovery scams target exactly this moment

A person mid-recovery, frustrated and several rejections deep, is the single easiest mark on the platform. Two defences.

Check the sending domain. Any correspondence from Facebook, Instagram, or Meta will only come from these domains, or their subdomains: fb.com, facebook.com, facebookmail.com, instagram.com, meta.com, metamail.com — according to Meta's account recovery support hub. Anything else asking for your ID or your login is a phishing attempt. There is no exception to this list.

Refuse every private offer of help. Scammers actively target people trying to recover Facebook accounts, commenting on or DMing victims to claim they know someone who can fix the account, or asking for money or login information. As the r/facebook scam warning puts it: there is no reason for someone to have to tell you in private how to get your account back. One comment in that thread even pushed a phone number as a "Facebook recovery" line, which is a classic third-party scam pattern — community-reported in r/facebook.

Facebook will never ask you to pay for account recovery, and no legitimate helper needs your password.

What you can control: keep a copy of your content

Here is the part the help pages will not tell you: you can do every step above perfectly and still not get the account back. Identity review has no appeal you control and no published deadline.

What you can control is whether the account is the only place your content exists.

SocialGuardian automatically backs up your posts, photos, videos, stories, reels, captions and follower/following lists from all major platforms — Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitch and Pinterest — into one dashboard, as described on SocialGuardian. If you get locked out, hacked, banned or shadowbanned, you can restore or download your archived content in one click, so your content survives even if the account doesn't, per the same page.

And it does it without ever touching the credentials you are currently fighting to recover. SocialGuardian backs up accounts using only the public @handle or profile URL — no password, no OAuth, no "log in with Instagram" — and explicitly says it never asks for them, as stated on SocialGuardian. Given that the section above is about phishing, that matters: there is nothing to steal.

Signing up takes about a minute and needs only a profile handle, with a 30-day free trial, cancel anytime, no password required, and an optional email used only for backup confirmations and reports — no marketing, according to the SocialGuardian sign-up page.

The short version

• Reset the password first if you still receive email or SMS codes.
• If not, start at facebook.com/hacked or facebook.com/login/identify on a device you've logged in from before.
• Choose No longer have access to these?, then the last-resort recovery form, to reach identity confirmation.
• Send one government ID, or two non-government IDs if you have no government document.
• Photograph the physical document in a well-lit room, fully in frame, unedited — physical covering of non-essential numbers is allowed.
• Delete the ID photo from your phone gallery afterwards, as Facebook advises.
• Trust no private offer of help, and no email from a domain outside Meta's published list.