Changing your GitHub username

In this article

• About username changes
• Repository references
• Links to your previous profile page
• Your Git commits
• Changing your username
• Further reading

About username changes

You can change your username to another username that is not currently in use.

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 cannot set up redirects for:

• @mentions using your old username
• Links to gists that include your old username

Repository references

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

• Web links to your existing repositories will continue to work. This can take a few minutes to complete after you make the change.
• Command line pushes from your local repository clones to the old remote tracking URLs will continue to work.

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 "Changing a remote's URL."

Links to your previous profile page

After changing your username, links to your previous profile page, such as https://[hostname]/previoususername, will return a 404 error. We recommend updating any links to your GitHub Enterprise account from elsewhere.

Your Git commits

If your Git commits are associated with another email address you've added to your GitHub account, 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

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

   

2. In the left sidebar, click Account.

   

3. In the "Change username" section, click Change username.

   

Further reading

• "Changing a remote's URL"
• "Why are my commits linked to the wrong user?"