How to Edit Your Profile in WordPress: Name, Email, Picture and Display Name

Updated: 8 October 2026 · Applies to: WordPress 7.1.3 (screen labels from its source code; WP-CLI 2.12.0 commands tested)

To edit your profile in WordPress, log in to the dashboard, go to Users > Profile (or point at Howdy, your name at the top right and click Edit Profile), change the fields you need and click Update Profile. If your role cannot manage users (Editor, Author, Contributor or Subscriber), the menu item is simply called Profile.

Edit your profile step by step

1. Log in at https://yourdomain.com/wp-admin (see how to log in to your WordPress dashboard).
2. Go to Users > Profile.
3. Change what you need. The screen has these sections:
   • Personal Options: Visual Editor, Syntax Highlighting, Administration Color Scheme, Keyboard Shortcuts, Toolbar (Show Toolbar when viewing site), Infinite Scrolling for the Media Library and Language.
   • Name: Username (cannot be changed), First Name, Last Name, Nickname (required) and Display name publicly as.
   • Contact Info: Email (required) and Website.
   • About Yourself: Biographical Info and Profile Picture.
   • Account Management: New Password (Set New Password) and Sessions (Log Out Everywhere Else).
   • Application Passwords: passwords for apps and scripts that use the REST API or XML-RPC.
4. Click Update Profile at the bottom. WordPress confirms with Profile updated. at the top of the screen.

Change the name shown on your posts

Your posts and comments show the Display name publicly as value, not your username. Fill in First Name and Last Name (or a Nickname); when you leave those fields, the drop-down offers your nickname, username, first name, last name, "First Last" and "Last First". Pick one and click Update Profile. To credit an existing post to another person, see how to modify the author on a WordPress post.

Change your email address

When you change the Email field on your own profile, WordPress does not switch at once. It sends a message with the subject [Your Site Name] Email Change Request to the new address, and the profile shows There is a pending change of your email to ... with a Cancel link. The new address becomes active only after you click the link in that email.

If the confirmation email never arrives, your site is probably not sending mail reliably. Set up SMTP (see Set Up SMTP for WordPress Emails) and try again. An Administrator who edits another user under Users > All Users changes that address directly, without a confirmation step.

Change your profile picture

WordPress does not store an uploaded profile photo. The Profile Picture is your Gravatar, looked up by your email address; the link You can change your profile picture on Gravatar takes you to gravatar.com, where you set a picture for the same email address. If no pictures appear anywhere on the site, check that Show Avatars is ticked under Settings > Discussion.

Change your username

WordPress shows Usernames cannot be changed. next to the field, and WP-CLI refuses as well:

$ wp user update admin --user_login=anita
Warning: User logins can't be changed.
Error: Need some fields to update.

The usual way round this is to create a new user with the username you want and the same role, log in as that user, then delete the old one and choose Attribute all content to another user so your posts are kept. See how to manage users in WordPress.

Edit a profile with WP-CLI

On SSH or cPanel Terminal, wp user update changes the same fields. Run it in the WordPress folder as the site's user:

$ wp user update admin --first_name=Anita --last_name=Joseph --nickname=anita --display_name="Anita Joseph"
Success: Updated user 1.
$ wp user update admin --description="WordPress support at Example Hosting." --user_url=https://example.com
Success: Updated user 1.

Check the result with wp user get admin. A few points from our test:

• --user_email=new@example.com changes the address immediately, with no confirmation link. Add --skip-email if you do not want WordPress to email a change notice.
• Type the address carefully: an invalid value such as not-an-email was accepted with Success but left the email field empty.
• The colour scheme is a user setting: wp user meta update admin admin_color midnight. The built-in schemes are Default, Fresh, Light, Blue, Midnight, Sunrise, Ectoplasm, Ocean and Coffee.

Related tasks

• Change your password: How to change your password in WordPress.
• Lost phone or shared computer: use Log Out Everywhere Else, or log everyone out (force logout all users).
• Application Passwords need HTTPS; without it WordPress shows that the feature requires HTTPS.

Official documentation: Users Your Profile screen, wp user update