# Index · Profile · User · Help · GitLab
GitLab Community Edition

# User account

When signed into their GitLab account, users can customize their experience according to the best approach to their cases.

## Signing in

There are several ways to sign into your GitLab account. See the authentication topic for more details.

## User profile

Your profile is available from the up-right corner menu bar (user's avatar) > Profile, or from `https://example.gitlab.com/username`.

On your profile page, you will see the following information:

- Personal information
- Activity stream: see your activity streamline and the history of your contributions
- Groups: groups you're a member of
- Contributed projects: projects you contributed to
- Personal projects: your personal projects (respecting the project's visibility level)
- Snippets: your personal code snippets

## Profile settings

You can edit your account settings by navigating from the up-right corner menu bar (user's avatar) > Settings, or visiting `https://example.gitlab.com/profile`.

From there, you can:

- Update your personal information
- Manage 2FA
- Change your username and delete your account
- Manage applications that can use GitLab as an OAuth provider
- Manage personal access tokens to access your account via API and authorized applications
- Add and delete emails linked to your account
- Manage SSH keys to access your account via SSH
- Manage your preferences to customize your own GitLab experience
- View your active sessions and revoke any of them if necessary
- Access your audit log, a security log of important events involving your account

## Changing your username

Your `username` is a unique `namespace` related to your user ID. Changing it can have unintended side effects, read how redirects will behave before proceeding.

To change your `username`:

1. Navigate to your profile's Settings > Account.
2. Enter a new username under "Change username".
3. Hit Update username.

CAUTION: Caution: It is currently not possible to change your username if it contains a project with Container Registry tags, because the project cannot be moved.

TIP: Tip: If you want to retain ownership over the original namespace and protect the URL redirects, then instead of changing a group's path or renaming a username, you can create a new group and transfer projects to it. Alternatively, you can follow this detailed procedure from the GitLab Team Handbook which also covers the case where you have projects hosted with GitLab Pages.

## Troubleshooting

### Why do I keep getting signed out?

When signing in to the main GitLab application, a `_gitlab_session` cookie is set. `_gitlab_session` is cleared client-side when you close your browser and expires after "Application settings -> Session duration (minutes)"/`session_expire_delay` (defaults to `10080` minutes = 7 days).

When signing in to the main GitLab application, you can also check the "Remember me" option which sets the `remember_user_token` cookie (via `devise`). `remember_user_token` expires after `config/initializers/devise.rb` -> `config.remember_for` (defaults to 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 will be asked to sign in again to verify your identity (which is for security reasons).