How To Edit Your WordPress User Profile

Your WordPress Users Profile screen lets you edit your name and how to display it on your site, your e-mail address for administrative purposes, optional contact information, plus personal settings.

In this blog post, you will learn about changing your WordPress user profile.

We will also show you how to create a user information box that automatically shows any content published by a user in the Author Archives page of your site and how to use this feature to better promote yourself or your business online.

How To Edit Your User Details In WordPress

At the far right-hand side at the top of your screen is the Howdy, User Name section …

Hover over this panel with your mouse and it expands to display an image of your Gravatar, your name and username, and links pointing to your “Profile Screen” and a “Log Out” link …

Choose Edit My Profile…

You can also edit your user profile from the main navigation menu by going to Users > Your Profile …

This brings you to the Profile screen …

The Profile section contains various subsections that let you view and edit information about your user account.

These include:

Personal Options
Name
Contact Info
About Yourself
Change Password

Let’s now review each of these options below …

User Profile Settings

Please refer to the above screenshot as you go through the sections below.

User Profile Area

1 – Accessing Your User Profile

As explained previously, you can access your profile screen by clicking on the “Howdy, User Name” section at the very top right hand corner of your administration screen toolbar and selecting “Edit My Profile” from the drop-down menu, or selecting Users > Your Profile from the main navigation menu.

Profile > Personal Options

You can ignore this section, unless you specifically want to customize aspects of your WordPress site administration area that are only viewable to you (and no one else) such as disabling the visual editor when writing, changing the admin area’s color scheme, or enabling keyboard shortcuts for comment moderation.

2 – Visual Editor

Checking this box disables the visual editor and uses the plain HTML editor instead.

Tip: If you experience any issues when trying to insert code into your content (e.g. HTML), try disabling the visual editor checkbox in this section.

3 – Admin Color Scheme

In version 3.8, WordPress introduced a new design feature that allows you to customize the look of your WordPress Dashboard by selecting a global color scheme …

WordPress User Profile: Customizing The Global WordPress Color Scheme

You can choose a new global color scheme for your WP administration area from the default choices provided, or customize the color scheme using various WordPress plugins …

Although this has no impact on what your blog visitors see (themes control the design of your website is controlled by your theme) or the functionality of your site or blog, this feature can be used for branding the dashboard with your corporate colors, or allowing other site users to personalize their own dashboard area.

To learn how to customize your WordPress dashboard, see the tutorial below:

Customizing Your WP Dashboard Screen

4 – Keyboard Shortcuts

Ticking the “Enable keyboard shortcuts for comment moderation” box allow you to moderate comments using keyboard shortcuts.

5 – Toolbar

The Admin Toolbar is located at the very top of your Dashboard screen and provides you (and your registered site users) with access to various important admin functions, features, information and “quick links” to other areas of your site …

Important: Leave the “Show Toolbar when viewing site” checkbox enabled to display the Toolbar in your WordPress admin area.

To learn more about the WordPress toolbar, see the tutorial below:

The WordPress Control Section Explained

Profile > Name

6 – Name > Username

You cannot change your username in the User Profile section.

You can, however, change your username if you know how to edit your WordPress database.

You can also change the username from your WordPress Admin area using an easier method that requires no messing with code or editing your WP database.

Changing your username will affect your login, as this username is required for logging into your WordPress site!

We have created a tutorial that explains how to do this here:

How To Change Your WP Admin Username

6 – Name > First Name / Last Name

You can change the First Name and Last Name details in this section.

Just enter the first name and last name into the text fields …

7 – Name > Nickname / Display Name Publicly As

If you want to display a different author name than the one you originally registered for your site on your posts, you can change the Nickname (required) field and select another nickname from the Display name publicly as drop down menu …

You can add multiple nicknames in your profile section.

If you change the nickname, all your blog posts, published comments, etc. will then display with this new nickname, instead of the one you originally set up your site with.

Profile > Contact Info

8 – Contact Info > Email

Ensure that your correct email address has been entered in the Email (required) field. This field is required (see “Notes” section below for more information).

9 – Contact Info > Website

Type your website or blog address in the Website field (optional).

If you have another website or blog that you would like to display in your profile, then enter the address for that website or blog instead.

10 – Contact Info > Other

You can fill in the other Contact Info section fields, or just ignore these.

For more details about this feature, see the “Your Profile: Additional Contact Information” section further below.

Profile > About Yourself

11 – About Yourself > Biographical Info

This section lets you add a personal or business description for your visitors or blog readers.

This feature not only lets you tell the world about yourself or your business, it can also be used to convert new visitors into leads for your products or services.

For great tips on how to write a truly compelling bio section that will help improve your conversions, see the article below:

How To Write A Killer Bio Section For Your Website

For more details about this feature, see the “User Profile: Useful Tips” section further below.

12 – About Yourself > Password Settings

Here you can change your login password details.

Use the New Password section only if you are required to change your login password. You will need to confirm your new password before the system can accept the password change.

For a step-by-step tutorial that teaches you you what to do if you lose or forget your password, go here:

What To Do If You Have Lost Or Forgotten A Password In WordPress

13 – Log Out Of All Other Sessions

WordPress lets you log out of all current sessions except the one in your current browser. This is useful if, for example, you’ve left your account logged in at a public computer, or if you’ve lost or misplaced your phone.

To learn more about how to log out of WordPress, see the tutorial below:

How To Log Off WordPress

14 – Update Profile

Click the Update Profile button to save any changes you make to your user profile settings …

User Profile: Notes

WordPress only requires an e-mail address and a nickname.
Your email address is used only for administrative purposes.
Your email address is never sent to any other site (including WordPress) and it is never displayed on your website (unless you specifically decide to display it, or use a WP theme that displays your email address).
Only registered users of your site can access the email address you have entered.
Each email address must be unique.

In Addition …

Adding certain plugins to your site (e.g. for adding social media features), may add or remove fields in the User Profile screen (e.g. add a Twitter username field, display extra settings related to the plugin, etc…)

There are a number of plugins that allow you to modify user profile fields. You can browse a number of these plugins by typing in keywords like “user profile fields” in the “Add Plugins” section inside your WordPress dashboard …

See Tip #3 in the “User Profile: Useful Tips” section below for an example of a free plugin that lets you hide unnecessary user profile fields.

WordPress User Profile: Additional Contact Info

As mentioned earlier, the Profile area has a number of fields that allow you to enter additional contact information such as:

Normally, most users simply leave these fields empty. Some WordPress theme developers, however, may choose to customize their templates to display this and other contact information.

If this is the case, then you can choose to set up accounts with these services (if you haven’t already done so) and then add your details to the appropriate fields in the Contact Info section.

WordPress provides default fields for the following services:

AIM

AIM is a desktop and mobile chat application that lets you chat with friends or collaborate on a group project online …

Yahoo! Messenger

Yahoo! Messenger allows you to connect and chat with friends from any web browser or mobile device …

Jabber / Google Talk

Although this field says “Jabber / Google Talk”, if you click on the link in this section, you will be taken to Google Hangouts.

Google Hangouts is an instant messaging and video chat platform developed by Google. It replaces three messaging products that Google had implemented concurrently within its services, including Google Talk, Google+ Messenger (formerly: Huddle), and Hangouts, a video chat system present within Google+ …

Useful Tip: If you plan to run webinars on your website using Google Hangouts, then see this article we’ve written about a great plugin that lets you run a business-level video conferencing platform on your site with Google Hangouts:

RunClick – Webinar Plugin

Your Profile: Tips

Tip #1: Check the “Show Toolbar when viewing site box is ticked inside the Toolbar subsection of your Profile area …

Tip #2: Your user profile gives you an additional opportunity to create additional backlinks which can be indexed by search engines.

To start with, add a Nickname and/or select a different name to display as the author of your blog posts …

Once you have set this up, a link to the author displaying your chosen nickname gets added to every post published on your site …

This link takes your site visitors to the Author Archives section, where they can learn more about you (or about other authors registered as users on your site) and see what other articles that you (or your guest authors) have published …

You can include links and basic formatting like bold and italicized words to improve your author description and promote yourself, your services, products, other websites, etc. to site visitors …

To do this simply paste HTML formatted text into the About Yourself > Biographical Info field in your Profile section …

Tip #3 (Advanced User): How To Hide User Profile Fields

You can install a free WordPress plugin called Hide User Profile Fields that automatically hides a number of fields when activated, such as:

Color Scheme
Keyboard Shortcuts Checkbox
Admin Toolbar
AIM
Jabber
Yahoo IM
Website
Biographical Info text area
User Role (every new user is registered as “Subscriber”)

For more information, visit the plugin page here:

Hide User Profile Fields – Plugin For WordPress

Congratulations! Now you know how to change your user details in WordPress.