User account

Each GitLab account has a user profile, which contains information about you and your GitLab activity.

Your profile also includes settings, which you use to customize your GitLab experience.

Access your user profile

To access your profile:

  1. In the top-right corner, select your avatar.
  2. Select your name or username.

Access your user settings

To access your user settings:

  1. In the top-right corner, select your avatar.
  2. Select Edit profile.

Change your password

To change your password:

  1. In the top-right corner, select your avatar.
  2. Select Edit profile.
  3. In the left sidebar, select Password.
  4. In the Current password field, enter your current password.
  5. In the New password and Password confirmation field, enter your new password.
  6. Select Save password.

If you don’t know your current password, select the I forgot my password link.

Change your username

Your username has a unique namespace, which is updated when you change your username. Before you change your username, read about how redirects behave. If you do not want to update the namespace, you can create a new user or group and transfer projects to it instead.

Prerequisites:

To change your username:

  1. In the top-right corner, select your avatar.
  2. Select Edit profile.
  3. In the left sidebar, select Account.
  4. In the Change username section, enter a new username as the path.
  5. Select Update username.

Make your user profile page private

You can make your user profile visible to only you and GitLab administrators.

To make your profile private:

  1. In the top-right corner, select your avatar.
  2. Select Edit profile.
  3. Select the Private profile checkbox.
  4. Select Update profile settings.

The following is hidden from your user profile page (https://gitlab.example.com/username):

  • Atom feed
  • Date when account was created
  • Tabs for activity, groups, contributed projects, personal projects, starred projects, snippets
noteMaking your user profile page private does not hide your public resources from the REST or GraphQL APIs.

Add external accounts to your user profile page

You can add links to certain other external accounts you might have, like Skype and Twitter. They can help other users connect with you on other platforms.

To add links to other accounts:

  1. In the top-right corner, select your avatar.
  2. Select Edit profile.
  3. In the Main settings section, add your information from:
    • Skype
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
  4. Select Update profile settings.

Show private contributions on your user profile page

Introduced in GitLab 11.3.

In the user contribution calendar graph and recent activity list, you can see your contribution actions to private projects.

To show private contributions:

  1. In the top-right corner, select your avatar.
  2. Select Edit profile.
  3. In the Main settings section, select the Include private contributions on my profile checkbox.
  4. Select Update profile settings.

Add your gender pronouns

Introduced in GitLab 14.0.

You can add your gender pronouns to your GitLab account to be displayed next to your name in your profile.

To specify your pronouns:

  1. In the top-right corner, select your avatar.
  2. Select Edit profile.
  3. In the Pronouns field, enter your pronouns.
  4. Select Update profile settings.

Set your current status

Version history
  • Introduced in GitLab 11.2.
  • Improved in GitLab 13.10.

You can provide a custom status message for your user profile along with an emoji that describes it. This may be helpful when you are out of office or otherwise not available.

Your status is publicly visible even if your profile is private.

To set your current status:

  1. In the top-right corner, select your avatar.
  2. Select Set status or, if you have already set a status, Edit status.
  3. Set the desired emoji and status message. Status messages must be plain text and 100 characters or less. They can also contain emoji codes like, I'm on vacation :palm_tree:.
  4. Select a value from the Clear status after dropdown.
  5. Select Set status. Alternatively, you can select Remove status to remove your user status entirely.

You can also set your current status by using the API.

If you select the Busy checkbox, remember to clear it when you become available again.

Set a busy status indicator

Version history

To indicate to others that you are busy, you can set an indicator.

To set the busy status indicator, either:

  • Set it directly:
    1. In the top-right corner, select your avatar.
    2. Select Set status or, if you have already set a status, Edit status.
    3. Select the Busy checkbox.
  • Set it on your profile:
    1. In the top-right corner, select your avatar.
    2. Select Edit profile.
    3. In the Current status section, select the Busy checkbox.

    The busy status is displayed in the user interface.

    Username:

    Profile page Settings menu User popovers
    Busy status - profile page Busy status - settings menu Busy status - user popovers

    Issue and merge request sidebar:

    Sidebar Collapsed sidebar
    Busy status - sidebar Busy status - sidebar collapsed

    Notes:

    Notes Note headers
    Busy status - notes Busy status - note header

Change the email displayed on your commits

Introduced in GitLab 11.4.

A commit email is an email address displayed in every Git-related action carried out through the GitLab interface.

Any of your own verified email addresses can be used as the commit email.

To change your commit email:

  1. In the top-right corner, select your avatar.
  2. Select Edit profile.
  3. In the Commit email list, select an email address.
  4. Select Update profile settings.

Use an automatically-generated private commit email

Introduced in GitLab 11.5.

GitLab provides an automatically-generated private commit email address, so you can keep your email information private.

To use a private commit email:

  1. In the top-right corner, select your avatar.
  2. Select Edit profile.
  3. In the Commit email list, select the Use a private email option.
  4. Select Update profile settings.

Every Git-related action uses the private commit email.

To stay fully anonymous, you can also copy the private commit email and configure it on your local machine by using the following command: 

git config --global user.email <your email address>

Troubleshooting

Why do I keep getting signed out?

When you sign in to the main GitLab application, a _gitlab_session cookie is set. When you close your browser, the cookie is cleared client-side and it expires after “Application settings > Session duration (minutes)”/session_expire_delay (defaults to 10080 minutes = 7 days) of no activity.

When you sign in to the main GitLab application, you can also check the Remember me option. This sets the remember_user_token cookie via devise. The remember_user_token cookie expires after config/initializers/devise.rb -> config.remember_for. The default is 2 weeks.

When the _gitlab_session expires or isn’t available, GitLab uses the remember_user_token to get you a new _gitlab_session and keep you signed in through browser restarts.

After your remember_user_token expires and your _gitlab_session is cleared/expired, you are asked to sign in again to verify your identity for security reasons.

noteWhen any session is signed out, or when a session is revoked via Active Sessions, all Remember me tokens are revoked. While other sessions remain active, the Remember me feature doesn’t restore a session if the browser is closed or the existing session expires.

Increased sign-in time

Introduced in GitLab 13.1.

The remember_user_token lifetime of a cookie can now extend beyond the deadline set by config.remember_for, as the config.extend_remember_period flag is now set to true.

GitLab uses both session and persistent cookies:

  • Session cookie: Session cookies are normally removed at the end of the browser session when the browser is closed. The _gitlab_session cookie has no fixed expiration date. However, it expires based on its session_expire_delay.
  • Persistent cookie: The remember_user_token is a cookie with an expiration date of two weeks. GitLab activates this cookie if you select Remember Me when you sign in.

By default, the server sets a time-to-live (TTL) of 1-week on any session that is used.

When you close a browser, the session cookie may still remain. For example, Chrome has the “Continue where you left off” option that restores session cookies. In other words, as long as you access GitLab at least once every 2 weeks, you could remain signed in with GitLab, as long as your browser tab is open. The server continues to reset the TTL for that session, independent of whether 2FA is installed, If you close your browser and open it up again, the remember_user_token cookie allows your user to reauthenticate itself.

Without the config.extend_remember_period flag, you would be forced to sign in again after two weeks.