Changing your email address

Your email address is how you sign in — we send you a link, you click it, and you're in. So changing your email means changing the way you get into your account. We ask you to confirm the new address first, to make sure a typo can't lock you out.

Everything else about your account stays exactly as it is: your profile, your groups, your events, your messages, and your history all come with you.

Step 1 — Open your profile

Click your name or photo at the bottom of the sidebar to open your profile page.

Step 2 — Start the change

Find the Personal Information card. Next to your email address, click Change.

Step 3 — Enter your new address

Type the address you'd like to use and click Send confirmation link.

Nothing has changed yet. You'll see a Check your inbox message confirming we've sent a link to the new address — your account still uses your old address until you open that link.

If you mistyped, click Use a different address and try again. The old link stops working as soon as you send a new one.

Step 4 — Open the link we sent

Go to the inbox for your new address and find the email titled "Confirm your new email address". Click Confirm this email.

That's it — you'll see a confirmation page, and your account now uses the new address. You don't need to sign out and back in.

The link is good for one hour. If it expires, just start again from Step 2.

What happens to your old address

Two things:

We email it. When you start the change, your old address gets a security notice letting you know a change was requested. When the change completes, it gets a second note confirming it. If you ever get one of these and it wasn't you, contact us right away — someone may be trying to take over your account.

We keep it as a reply address. Your old address stays linked to your account as a verified alias, so if you reply to one of our notification emails from it, your reply still lands in the right conversation. You can see and remove your aliases at any time — see Reply-by-email aliases.

If you already have the maximum of five verified aliases, we can't keep the old one, and the completion email will tell you so.

If the address is already taken

Every address can only belong to one account. If the one you entered is already in use — as someone's sign-in address or as their reply alias — we'll tell you, and nothing changes. Use a different address, or contact us if you think the other account is yours.

If you're changing to an address you've already confirmed

If the new address is one you've already verified as a reply alias, there's nothing left to prove — we make the switch right away and skip the confirmation email. You'll see Email address updated instead of Check your inbox.

A note on typing carefully

Read the new address back before you send. Because sign-in works by emailing you a link, an address you can't open is an address you can't sign in with. The confirmation step exists precisely to catch this: the change only goes through once you've proven you can receive mail at the new address.

If something has gone wrong and you can't get into your account, contact us — we can help.