Github how to change username

Changing your GitHub username

In this article

You can change the username for your account on GitHub.com.

About username changes

You can change your username to another username that is not currently in use. If the username you want is not available, consider other names or unique variations. Using a number, hyphen, or an alternative spelling might help you find a similar username that’s still available.

If you hold a trademark for the username, you can find more information about making a trademark complaint on our Trademark Policy page.

If you do not hold a trademark for the name, you can choose another username or keep your current username. GitHub Support cannot release the unavailable username for you. For more information, see «Changing your username.»

After changing your username, your old username becomes available for anyone else to claim. Most references to your repositories under the old username automatically change to the new username. However, some links to your profile won’t automatically redirect.

GitHub cannot set up redirects for:

If you’re a member of an enterprise with managed users, you cannot make changes to your username. For more information, see «Types of GitHub accounts.»

After you change your username, GitHub will automatically redirect references to your repositories.

If the new owner of your old username creates a repository with the same name as your repository, that will override the redirect entry and your redirect will stop working. Because of this possibility, we recommend you update all existing remote repository URLs after changing your username. For more information, see «Managing remote repositories.»

Links to your previous profile page

Your Git commits

Git commits that were associated with your GitHub-provided noreply email address won’t be attributed to your new username and won’t appear in your contributions graph. If your Git commits are associated with another email address you’ve added to your GitHub account, including the ID-based GitHub-provided noreply email address, they’ll continue to be attributed to you and appear in your contributions graph after you’ve changed your username. For more information on setting your email address, see «Setting your commit email address.»

Changing your username

In the upper-right corner of any page, click your profile photo, then click Settings.

In the left sidebar, click

In the «Change username» section, click Change username.

Type a new username.

Managing user account settings

About your personal dashboard

You can visit your personal dashboard to keep track of issues and pull requests you’re working on or following, navigate to your top repositories and team pages, stay updated on recent activities in organizations and repositories you’re subscribed to, and explore recommended repositories.

Managing your theme settings

You can manage how GitHub looks to you by setting a theme preference that either follows your system settings or always uses a light or dark mode.

Managing your tab size rendering preference

You can manage the number of spaces a tab is equal to for your personal account.

Changing your GitHub username

You can change the username for your account on GitHub.com.

Merging multiple personal accounts

If you have separate accounts for work and personal use, you can merge the accounts.

Converting a user into an organization

You can convert your personal account into an organization. This allows more granular permissions for repositories that belong to the organization.

Deleting your personal account

You can delete your personal account on GitHub at any time.

Permission levels for a personal account repository

A repository owned by a personal account has two permission levels: the repository owner and collaborators.

Permission levels for a project board owned by a personal account

A project board owned by a personal account has two permission levels: the project board owner and collaborators.

Managing accessibility settings

GitHub’s user interface can adapt to your vision, hearing, motor, cognitive, or learning needs.

Managing the default branch name for your repositories

You can set the default branch name for new repositories that you create on GitHub.com.

Managing security and analysis settings for your personal account

You can control features that secure and analyze the code in your projects on GitHub.

Managing access to your personal account’s project boards

As a project board owner, you can add or remove a collaborator and customize their permissions to a project board.

Best practices for leaving your company

If you use your account on GitHub for both personal and work purposes, there are a few things to keep in mind when you leave your company or organization.

What does the ‘Available for hire’ checkbox do?

Use the Available for hire checkbox to view GitHub Jobs posts within GitHub.

Help us make these docs great!

All GitHub docs are open source. See something that’s wrong or unclear? Submit a pull request.

How to safely change github account name?

I would like to change my github account name, I found an option in GitHub account settings.

However, I am concerned about consequences and would like to know what is the best strategy of name change, considering that I have some projects of my own tied to this account.

So far, I came up with this plan:

Will this work? Should there be any further steps on a computer which holds project sources? What will be the effect of name change on those who cloned or forked my projects on GitHub?

3 Answers 3

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1.) You have to change all your projects remote addresses. You can see them via:

After that remove the old remote addres:

finally add your new remote address:

2.) All your cloned repos will break. There is no URL-redirect or anything similar. You can change your local cloned repos, but others have to point to the new repo addres(like in Step 1)

Note: Github forked repos works without any problem.

GitHub has recently changed their username rename system, and now sets up redirects for you.

On the GitHub side, everything will behave as if your new username had always been your name. All of your repositories will now belong to that new name and the old username will essentially no longer exist. This can take a few minutes to complete after you initiate the change.

Links to your previous profile page, such as https://github.com/previoususername, return a 404 error. We cannot set up a redirect from the old username to the new one for references like @mentions.

However, redirects are setup for all your repositories. Both web and git access to the old location continue to function, and redirect toward the new username.

Github how to change username

About username changes

You can change your username to another username that is not currently in use. <% ifversion fpt or ghec %>If the username you want is not available, consider other names or unique variations. Using a number, hyphen, or an alternative spelling might help you find a similar username that’s still available.

If you hold a trademark for the username, you can find more information about making a trademark complaint on our Trademark Policy page.

If you do not hold a trademark for the name, you can choose another username or keep your current username. <% data variables.contact.github_support %>cannot release the unavailable username for you. For more information, see «Changing your username.»

After changing your username, your old username becomes available for anyone else to claim. Most references to your repositories under the old username automatically change to the new username. However, some links to your profile won’t automatically redirect.

If you’re a member of an <% data variables.product.prodname_emu_enterprise %>, you cannot make changes to your username.

After you change your username, <% data variables.product.product_name %>will automatically redirect references to your repositories.

If the new owner of your old username creates a repository with the same name as your repository, that will override the redirect entry and your redirect will stop working. Because of this possibility, we recommend you update all existing remote repository URLs after changing your username. For more information, see «Managing remote repositories.»

Links to your previous profile page

Your Git commits

<% ifversion fpt or ghec %>Git commits that were associated with your <% data variables.product.product_name %>-provided noreply email address won’t be attributed to your new username and won’t appear in your contributions graph. <% endif %>If your Git commits are associated with another email address you’ve added to your GitHub account, <% ifversion fpt or ghec %>including the ID-based <% data variables.product.product_name %>-provided noreply email address, <% endif %>they’ll continue to be attributed to you and appear in your contributions graph after you’ve changed your username. For more information on setting your email address, see «Setting your commit email address.»

Changing your username

Changing your GitHub username

In this article

You can change the username for your account on GitHub.com.

Note: Members of an enterprise with managed users cannot change usernames. Your enterprise’s IdP administrator controls your username for GitHub Enterprise Cloud. For more information, see «About Enterprise Managed Users.»

About username changes

You can change your username to another username that is not currently in use. If the username you want is not available, consider other names or unique variations. Using a number, hyphen, or an alternative spelling might help you find a similar username that’s still available.

If you hold a trademark for the username, you can find more information about making a trademark complaint on our Trademark Policy page.

If you do not hold a trademark for the name, you can choose another username or keep your current username. GitHub Support cannot release the unavailable username for you. For more information, see «Changing your username.»

After changing your username, your old username becomes available for anyone else to claim. Most references to your repositories under the old username automatically change to the new username. However, some links to your profile won’t automatically redirect.

GitHub Enterprise Cloud cannot set up redirects for:

If you’re a member of an enterprise with managed users, you cannot make changes to your username. For more information, see «Types of GitHub accounts.»

After you change your username, GitHub Enterprise Cloud will automatically redirect references to your repositories.

If the new owner of your old username creates a repository with the same name as your repository, that will override the redirect entry and your redirect will stop working. Because of this possibility, we recommend you update all existing remote repository URLs after changing your username. For more information, see «Managing remote repositories.»

Links to your previous profile page

Your Git commits

Git commits that were associated with your GitHub Enterprise Cloud-provided noreply email address won’t be attributed to your new username and won’t appear in your contributions graph. If your Git commits are associated with another email address you’ve added to your GitHub account, including the ID-based GitHub Enterprise Cloud-provided noreply email address, they’ll continue to be attributed to you and appear in your contributions graph after you’ve changed your username. For more information on setting your email address, see «Setting your commit email address.»

Changing your username

In the upper-right corner of any page, click your profile photo, then click Settings.

In the left sidebar, click

In the «Change username» section, click Change username.

Type a new username.