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. On the top bar, in the upper-right corner, select your avatar.
  2. Select your name or username.

Access your user settings

To access your user settings:

  1. On the top bar, in the upper-right corner, select your avatar.
  2. Select Edit profile.

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

Add emails to your user profile

To add new email to your account:

  1. On the top bar, in the upper-right corner, select your avatar.
  2. Select Edit profile.
  3. On the left sidebar, select Emails.
  4. In the Email text box, enter the new email.
  5. Select Add email address.
  6. Verify your email address with the verification email received.

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. On the top bar, in the upper-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
note
Making your user profile page private does not hide all your public resources from the REST or GraphQL APIs. For example, the email address associated with your commit signature is accessible unless you use an automatically-generated private commit email.

User visibility

The public page of a user, located at /username, is always visible whether you are signed-in or not.

When visiting the public page of a user, you can only see the projects which you have privileges to.

If the public level is restricted, user profiles are only visible to authenticated users.

Add details to your profile with a README

Introduced in GitLab 14.5.

You can add more information to your profile page with a README file. When you populate the README file with information, it’s included on your profile page.

From a new project

To create a new project and add its README to your profile:

  1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Projects > View all projects.
  2. On the right of the page, select New project.
  3. Select Create blank project.
  4. Enter the project details:
    • In the Project name field, enter the name for your new project.
    • In the Project URL field, select your GitLab username.
    • In the Project slug field, enter your GitLab username.
  5. For Visibility Level, select Public. Proper project path for an individual on the hosted product
  6. For Project Configuration, ensure Initialize repository with a README is selected.
  7. Select Create project.
  8. Create a README file inside this project. The file can be any valid README or index file.
  9. Populate the README file with Markdown, or another supported markup language.

GitLab displays the contents of your README below your contribution graph.

From an existing project

To add the README from an existing project to your profile, update the path of the project to match your username.

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. On the top bar, in the upper-right corner, select your avatar.
  2. Select Edit profile.
  3. In the Main settings section, add your information from:
    • Discord (User ID)
    • LinkedIn
    • Skype
    • Twitter
  4. Select Update profile settings.

Show private contributions on your user profile page

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

To show private contributions:

  1. On the top bar, in the upper-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. On the top bar, in the upper-right corner, select your avatar.
  2. Select Edit profile.
  3. In the Pronouns text box, enter your pronouns.
  4. Select Update profile settings.

Add your name pronunciation

Introduced in GitLab 14.2.

You can add your name pronunciation to your GitLab account. This is displayed in your profile, below your name.

To add your name pronunciation:

  1. On the top bar, in the upper-right corner, select your avatar.
  2. Select Edit profile.
  3. In the Pronunciation text box, enter how your name is pronounced.
  4. Select Update profile settings.

Set your current status

Introduced in GitLab 13.10, users can schedule the clearing of their status.

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. On the top bar, in the upper-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 list.
  5. Select Set status. Alternatively, you can select Remove status to remove your user status entirely.

You can also set your current status from your user settings or 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. On the top bar, in the upper-right corner, select your avatar.
    2. Select Set status or, if you have already set a status, Edit status.
    3. Select the Set yourself as busy checkbox.
  • Set it on your profile:
    1. On the top bar, in the upper-right corner, select your avatar.
    2. Select Edit profile.
    3. In the Current status section, select the Set yourself as 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

Set your time zone

You can set your local time zone to:

  • Display your local time on your profile, and in places where hovering over your name shows information about you.
  • Align your contribution calendar with your local time to better reflect when your contributions were made (introduced in GitLab 14.5).

To set your time zone:

  1. On the top bar, in the upper-right corner, select your avatar.
  2. Select Edit profile.
  3. In the Time settings section, select your time zone from the dropdown list.

Change the email displayed on your commits

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. Your primary email is used by default.

To change your commit email:

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

Change your primary email

Your primary email is the default email address for your login, commit email, and notification email.

To change your primary email:

  1. In the upper-right corner, select your avatar.
  2. Select Edit profile.
  3. In the Email field, enter your new email address.
  4. Select Update profile settings.
  5. Optional. Select the confirmation email if you have not previously added this email to your GitLab.com account.

Set your public email

You can select one of your configured email addresses to be displayed on your public profile:

  1. In the upper-right corner, select your avatar.
  2. Select Edit profile.
  3. In the Public email field, select one of the available email addresses.
  4. Select Update profile settings.

Use an automatically-generated private commit email

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

To use a private commit email:

  1. On the top bar, in the upper-right corner, select your avatar.
  2. Select Edit profile.
  3. In the Commit email dropdown list, select Use a private email.
  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>

User activity

GitLab tracks user contribution activity. You can follow or unfollow other users from either:

  • Their user profiles.
  • The small popover that appears when you hover over a user’s name (introduced in GitLab 15.0).

In GitLab 15.5 and later, the maximum number of users you can follow is 300.

To view a user’s activity in a top-level Activity view:

  1. From a user’s profile, select Follow.
  2. In the GitLab menu, select Activity.
  3. Select the Followed users tab.

Troubleshooting

Why do you 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 a set duration. GitLab administrators can determine the duration:

  1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Admin.
  2. On the left sidebar, select Settings > General.
  3. Expand Account and limit. The set duration is in Session duration (minutes).

The default is 10080, which equals 7 days.

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.

note
When 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 typically 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.