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I want to change my account's user name on GitHub, but I can't find how to do it. Is this possible at all? To clarify, I'm not talking about the user.name parameter in a git repository, but the username of the actual GitHub account.

Machavity
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Aleksandar Savkov
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2 Answers2

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Yes, it's possible. But first read, "What happens when I change my username?"

To change your username, click your profile picture in the top right corner, then click Settings. On the left side, click Account. Then click Change username. See the pictures below: Settings

Change username

Confirm changing username

Type the new username

Confirm the new username

Soufian El Habib
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Sapan Diwakar
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    But keep in mind that, Links to your repositories will redirect to the new URLs, but they should be updated on other sites because someone who chooses your abandoned username can override the links. Links to your profile page will be 404's. – Nirajan Mahara Aug 27 '21 at 17:15
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Yes, this is an old question. But it's misleading, as this was the first result in my search, and both the answers aren't correct anymore.

You can change your Github account name at any time.

To do this, click your profile picture > Settings > Account Settings > Change Username.

Links to your repositories will redirect to the new URLs, but they should be updated on other sites because someone who chooses your abandoned username can override the links. Links to your profile page will be 404'd.

For more information, see the official help page.

And furthermore, if you want to change your username to something else, but that specific username is being taken up by someone else who has been completely inactive for the entire time their account has existed, you can report their account for name squatting.

hpm
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  • I don't understand. Didn't Sapan say to click the same thing? – johnny Jan 10 '18 at 20:11
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    @johnny, taking a look at the April 9, 2015 snapshot of this page on web.archive.org reveals that there were not one, but two answers at the time of my post, and that Sapan's answer was different. It was changed in response to a comment left by codefl0w. – hpm Jan 14 '18 at 23:56
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    FYI, you can click on 'edited [date]' to see an edit history, rather than digging into an archive. – Rob Hogan Feb 10 '18 at 18:37
  • @hyperum Can you elaborate on the "account for name squatting." ? What is the process of doing this if somene has a username that doesn't have any activity ? – thanos.a Dec 15 '19 at 12:27
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    @thanos.a If you are sure the account is inactive with the username that you desire, go ahead and contact GitHub Support at support.github.com/contact. When I did the same to get my current username, they sent me back an email informing me that the account was removed and that I was free to take their username as a result. – hpm Dec 15 '19 at 12:34