Legacy Author Link
For connecting a legacy author name to your new account.
Legacy Draws Claims
Did you draw on YouDraw before GEN III?
Reconnect with the archive
We want to help you reconnect your media-float author name with your new YouDraw account wherever possible.
Legacy author names were user-entered names, not verified accounts. People could enter an author name when making a Draw, but that name was not tied to a secure login or identity check.
This means we cannot always know for sure who was behind a media-float author name. In some cases, the same name may even have been used by several people.
Still, we are trying to make the process as open, fair, and useful as possible.
For that reason, we separate two things:
Legacy Name Claim
For officially verifying a legacy author name as yours.
Legacy Author Link
A Legacy Author Link lets you connect a legacy author name to your new YouDraw account.
You can do this as soon as you create your GEN III account.
This is the simple version. It allows you to reconnect with the archive without going through a full verification process.
You can link up to 3 legacy author names to your account.
Because legacy author names were user-entered, more than one person may link the same author name while it has not been officially verified.
A Legacy Author Link does not mean the name has been confirmed as yours.
It simply means:
This is an author name I believe I used on YouDraw.
When a legacy name is verified
If a legacy author name is officially verified and attributed to a user, that name becomes locked.
Once a name is locked, no one else can link that author name to their account.
This helps protect confirmed legacy contributors and keeps the archive clear.
Legacy Name Claim
A Legacy Name Claim is the process for officially claiming a legacy author name and making it part of your YouDraw identity again.
For now, all legacy author names are reserved and cannot be used freely as new usernames. This helps avoid someone accidentally, or intentionally, taking a name that belonged to another contributor.
If we can confirm that a legacy author name belongs to you, that name can be connected to your new account as a Verified Legacy Name.
In that case, the name can become part of your YouDraw identity again.
How to make a Legacy Name Claim
Before submitting a Legacy Name Claim, you need to:
These new Draws help us compare style and visual clues when reviewing legacy name claims.
- 1. Create an account on YouDraw GEN III.
- 2. Create at least 5 new Draws.
What we need from you
Please tell us the author name, or author names, you used on earlier versions of YouDraw.
If you used several names, separate them with commas.
Example: DrawMaster99, littlefish, Myspace
You can also use the free text box to give us more context.
Useful details could include details about Draws you remember making, themes you often drew, people you interacted with, comments you remember, dates, or anything else that helps prove you are the one that did those draws.
Why this matters
YouDraw is a shared archive built by thousands of people over many years.
Our goal is to help as many people as possible reconnect with the names they used, while also protecting the history and integrity of the project.
Because the early system used user-entered names instead of verified accounts, the process will sometimes be imperfect.
The more information you provide, the easier it is for us to make the right call.