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I didn't post that picture, she did.

  • I'd logged in to my account using her phone, and had forgotten to log out.
  • I'd logged in to my account using her phone, and forgot to log out.

Which of the two sentences is correct?
Or are they both right grammatically?
Do they mean the same thing?

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  • Both are understandable and correct to mean the same thing. The second sentence: "forgot to log out", is better.
    – Peter
    Commented Dec 12, 2016 at 16:18
  • @Peter Would you say, "I knew who he was right when I saw him walking the streets, along the sidewalk across the road. I had seen him once and had taken a picture of him, just so I'd be able to recognize him in the future." or. "I knew who he was right when I saw him walking the streets, along the sidewalk across the road. I had seen him once and took a picture of him, just so I'd be able to recognize him in the future." this? Commented Dec 12, 2016 at 16:58
  • "Had taken a picture" would be better than "took a picture" since it implies some time ago in the past (for you to need to remember). Your versions are understandable, but quite long. "I knew who he was right away when I saw him walking across the street. I had taken a picture of him once before so I'd be able to recognize him." Many of the other phrases "along the sidewalk across the road", "had seen him once", "in the future" are repetitive rules there is a specific need to use all those descriptions.
    – Peter
    Commented Dec 12, 2016 at 18:30
  • Thanks. :) @Peter And I totally agree with you on how you say my versions are long. I'll try to work on that. :) Commented Dec 12, 2016 at 20:44

2 Answers 2

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I had logged into the account using her phone, and [then afterwards] forgot to log out.

Those tense choices draw attention to the sequence of events, both of them in the past, one happening before the other.

You can also say it without corroboration from the choice of tense, allowing the listener to infer the sequence:

I logged into the account using her phone and [then afterwards] forgot to log out.

In situations where relying upon the listener to infer would be sub-optimal, use the past perfect, inasmuch as it makes the sequence explicit.

You don't want to use past perfect in both clauses since it contributes nothing to the meaning in that case, unless you were to tack on yet another clause, and wished to assign it to a different time-frame, grouping the first two clauses as having happened in the same time-frame.

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You're talking about two completed actions (logging in, then forgetting to log out) both of which happened in the past, so I would use past simple in both cases as follows:

I logged in to my account using her phone and forgot to log out.

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