Help us confirm this account is yours

I spent days trying to recover an Instagram account and could not get in. It was a pretty annoying situation, but I finally solved it and decided to share the workaround here.

The message is "Help us confirm this account is yours". Clicking the button to get help does not really help, because the link only sends you to canned answers in the Instagram FAQ.

Here is what I tried, so you do not waste time on the same things:

• Sending messages to Instagram. I only received automatic password reset emails, which put me back into the same loop.
• Reclame Aqui. Automatic replies, no success.
• Changing the password more than 8 times, stuck in an endless loop.

So here is the workaround:

1. Download the Opera browser, which has a built-in VPN.

2. Enable the VPN in the settings. It should appear next to the address bar.

3. Switch to another country.

4. Open Instagram and reset the password by email.

5. In the email link that says secure your account here (as shown above), copy that link and open it in Opera.

6. Instagram will ask you to confirm some information. After confirming it, you should regain access to the account.

7. After this process, the "Help us confirm this account is yours" message should stop appearing on future logins.

Note: I tried resetting the password 3 times, and on the third attempt I had the idea of copying the link into Opera, which worked. I do not know if the number of attempts affects the process, but copy the link into Opera's VPN to trigger the confirmation form.

Update on 07/20/2020: Some people reported that this method no longer works. I was not able to run many tests to confirm whether it still works or not. If the VPN does not work, some things you can try are:

• Clear Instagram cookies in Opera.
• Change the VPN to another location.
• Request account reactivation by SMS if there is a phone number linked to the account.