How to Change WordPress Username – A Step-by-step Tutorial
WordPress usernames hold a lot of importance, especially when it comes to Admin privileges. Posts, activities and more are attributed to your own username and thus activity can be checked and monitored through them. However, there might be times when you might consider to change WordPress username assigned by you or your Admin credentials itself.
By default, you cannot change your username in WordPress. Once it is assigned, you can change your display name or add more details to your username but you cannot change the actual username itself through the Admin settings or the admin page.
However, there are ways to change by three different methods:
- Creating a new username and deleting the older one
- Modifying WordPress’s Database files
- Using a third party plugin
1. Creating new username
An easy workaround to change WordPress usernames is to simply create a new Admin credential and deleting the older one.
For this, direct to the WordPress admin page and hover or click on Users on the Dashboard.
Then, click on Add New to create a new Username and set up the credentials as required:
Do remember to take note of the username and the password. Click on Set password to check your password and change it if required. Set your role to Administrator and click on Add New User.
Once your new username is made and you have noted down the credentials. Logout and login into the new username. Then direct to the Users page again and delete the older username.
Before deleting, you will be notified about the content created by your older username. Here you can attribute all the older content to the new username so that all the older posts are not deleted. However, if you want to delete all the older posts, click on Delete All content.
Otherwise, in order to save the older posts, click on Attribute a content to and select the right username.
Now, you should be able to use your new username as your primary admin and easily manage your website.
However, you might have to setup your profile again.
2. Changing Name through WordPress
This method is something we don’t recommend to WordPress beginners. Basically, what we do here is to modify the WP_users file in your WordPress database tables to manually change your username
However, if you want to continue with this process, we highly suggest you save a backup for your current WordPress installation. We recommend this article as a good place to start if you do not know how to backup your WordPress website.
Using CPanel, access the Databases section and click on phpMyAdmin.
This will open the php admin page and here, you can access your WordPress’s database.
The Database structure containing your WordPress files might have a different name based on how it is set up. Click on the possible databases and find the ones with tables starting with the prefix “Wp_”
Click on the WP_users table to open the table consisting of your user credentials. This table will show user_login name, password, nickname(or user_nicename) and other user-related data. Here you can edit this data, by clicking on edit.
In this new edit window, click on the user_login row’s Value column on the far right. Then, change the username to your new username. Similarly, you can change the value of user email, nickname as well as password.
A note to keep is that if you ever lose your admin password, you can use this method as well to recover your password or even change it.
3. Using Plugins to change WordPress username
You can also use third-party plugins to change WordPress username. This method is much easier and safer as well than the previous two and we strongly suggest you consider this as an option.
There are various plugins available that easily let you change your WordPress username. Some of them are:
Username Changer
One of the most popular plugins when it comes to changing usernames. Since username changing plugins are made for a single purpose, the range of features provided them can be quite limited. However, this plugin makes up for it with easy to follow instructions and documentation as well as easy to use interface.
Learn-More-Download
Rename User
The working process for this plugin is identical as to the one above but Rename users plugin adds the benefit of emailing the administrator and account owner when their username is changed so that a foreign party cannot change it without your permissions.
Learn-More-Download
Using the plugin:
For this demonstration, we shall be using the third party plugin Username Changer.
However, keep a reminder that other plugins are also available for the same purpose but we are using this one as it is the easiest to use and quite popular as well. So if you are not satisfied with this plugin and its features, then you are free to use any other alternatives available, as the working process of all these plugins will usually be identical.
First, install this plugin, if you are not sure how to, we strongly suggest you read this article.
Like we did in the first step, direct to Users page from the dashboard and click on it.
Then, click on edit for the username required to be changed.
A simple link that says “Change Username” should be available next to the username entry field.
Click on this link and change the username to the new name and click on save.
Then, scroll down and click on update and your name should be changed.
Concluding:
Thus following these three different methods you can easily change your WordPress username. These methods require admin credentials and/or access to Cpanel to use so only admins can go through with this process. And for good reason as well, you don’t want unauthorized users changing your username and administrator privileges without permissions.
Similarly, for further WordPress customizations and personalizations, consider taking a look at these articles:
