How to Change Your WordPress Username (4 Methods)

WordPress doesn’t let you change your username from your profile, but there are four workarounds: create a new admin account and delete the old one, use the free Easy Username Updater plugin, or edit the user_login field in your database with phpMyAdmin or WP-CLI.

If you’ve tried the profile screen, you’ve seen the grayed-out field and the message “Usernames cannot be changed.”

This guide covers each method step by step, from the simplest to the most technical, checked against WordPress 7.1.

Video Tutorial

Prefer reading? Keep scrolling for all four methods below.

Why Change Your WordPress Username?

The most common reason is security. If your username is “admin” (WordPress’s old default), attackers already know half your login credentials. Brute force bots target predictable usernames first, so changing yours removes an easy attack vector.

Usernames to avoid:

• admin
• administrator
• root
• user
• test
• your domain name (e.g., “smartwp”)

Other reasons: you’re handing the site to a new owner, you made a typo during setup, or you want a username that matches your brand. Whatever the reason, pick the method below that fits your comfort level.

Which Method Should You Use?

Method	Difficulty	Requires	Best For
Create new user + delete old	Easy	Admin access	Most users
Username Updater plugin	Easiest	Admin access	Quick one-time change
phpMyAdmin database edit	Advanced	Hosting panel access	Locked out of WordPress
WP-CLI	Advanced	SSH access	Command-line users

Method 1: Create a New User and Delete the Old One

This is the most reliable method and doesn’t require any plugins. You’ll create a new administrator account with your preferred username, then delete the old one.

Step 1: Go to Users > Add User and create a new user with the Administrator role. Use a different email address than your current account. If you use Gmail, you can add a plus sign to reuse your address: [email protected] delivers to [email protected] but WordPress treats it as a separate email.

Step 2: Log out of your current account.

Step 3: Log back in with your new username.

Step 4: Go to Users, hover over your old username, and click “Delete.”

Step 5: When prompted, select “Attribute all content to another user,” choose your new account, and click Confirm Deletion. This transfers all posts, pages, and media to the new account. Don’t pick “Delete all content.” instead: it sends the old account’s posts and pages to the Trash and permanently deletes the media it uploaded.

After confirming the deletion, you’re done. All your content now belongs to the new username. The new account doesn’t inherit anything from the old profile, so re-enter your display name and bio, and set up two-factor authentication or passkeys again if you used them.

Method 2: Use the Easy Username Updater Plugin

If you’d rather skip creating and deleting accounts, the Easy Username Updater plugin lets you change any username directly. Install the plugin, then go to Users > Username Updater.

You’ll see a list of all users on your site with an “update” button next to each one.

Click “update,” type the new username, and save. The plugin also gives you the option to email the user about the change, which is helpful on multi-author sites.

One catch: the plugin also changes the account’s display name to the new username, so visit Users > Profile afterwards and pick the name you want shown on posts. Log out and back in after the change to see it take effect. Once you’ve updated all the usernames you need, you can deactivate and delete the plugin since it’s only needed for this one-time task.

Method 3: Change Your Username via phpMyAdmin

This method edits your WordPress database directly. It’s the most technical option, but it works even when you’re locked out of the WordPress admin entirely.

Back up your database before making any changes. Contact your hosting provider if you’re unsure how to access phpMyAdmin; most hosts (Bluehost, SiteGround, DreamHost) provide it through cPanel or their custom dashboard.

Step 1: Log in to your hosting control panel and open phpMyAdmin.

Step 2: Select your WordPress database, then click on the wp_users table. Note: some security plugins change the default wp_ prefix to a random string. Look for any table ending in _users.

Step 3: Click “Edit” next to the user you want to change. Update the user_login value to your new username and click “Go.”

Clear your browser cookies before logging in again to avoid session conflicts with the old username. If your host runs a persistent object cache such as Redis, flush it too, or WordPress may keep using a cached copy of the old account details.

Method 4: Change Your Username with WP-CLI

If you have SSH access, WP-CLI can make the same database change as phpMyAdmin. Its wp user update command skips login names with the warning “User logins can’t be changed.”, so the change runs as a database query instead. wp db prefix fills in your table prefix, so the command works even if yours is not wp_.

# Find the user's ID and current login
wp user list --fields=ID,user_login,user_nicename

# Change the login name for user ID 1
wp db query "UPDATE $(wp db prefix)users SET user_login = 'newname' WHERE ID = 1;"

# Optional: change the author URL slug to match
wp user update 1 --user_nicename=newname

# Clear any persistent object cache
wp cache flush

Back up the database first with wp db export. Usernames can be up to 60 characters, and the author URL slug up to 50.

Troubleshooting

If you run into issues after changing your username, here are the most common fixes:

Problem	Fix
You can’t log in after the change	Type the new username, or log in with your email address, which WordPress also accepts. Clearing your browser cookies helps too, since your login cookie still holds the old username.
“This email is already registered” in Method 1	Use the Gmail plus trick ([email protected]) or a second email address.
Posts are missing after you deleted the old account	“Delete all content.” was chosen instead of attributing it to another user. Restore the posts and pages from the Trash within 30 days (the default), then use Bulk actions > Edit on the Posts screen to set the new author and publish them again, since restored posts come back as drafts. Deleted media can only come back from a backup.
Your author archive URL didn’t change	WordPress builds author URLs from the user_nicename field, not user_login. Update it in phpMyAdmin, or with wp user update and --user_nicename.

Frequently Asked Questions

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That covers all four ways to change your WordPress username. For most people, Method 1 (creating a new admin account) is the simplest option, since it needs no plugin or database access. Use the plugin if you want to keep the same account, phpMyAdmin if you’re locked out entirely, and WP-CLI if you already manage the site from the command line.