You can change your admin username…even if they say you can’t

If you’re brand new to WordPress chances are you used the default name “admin” in your initial WordPress setup and then someone told you “admin” is not the best choice. You’re not alone, but they are right: “admin” is a dangerous choice.

Over 68 million people have WordPress websites, and in 2011 it was estimated that over 100,000 new WordPresses are created every day.Having a secure username and password is the first line of defense, and “admin” is not a secure username.

If you’re like me you think, “No, problem, I’ll just change my Username,” so you go to Dashboard > Users > All Users; Click on the edit button under “admin” and read the disclaimer, “Usernames cannot be changed.” Merde!

Don’t panic. Here’s a little trick I picked up along the way:

First, set yourself up as a new user because you can’t edit the default “admin” user

1. Dashboard > Users > Add New
2. Fill in the Add New User fields
3. Tip No. 1: Your e-mail field: No two users can have the same email address. If you only have one email account (1) enter a fake email address. (2) In the “Send Password?” field, leave the “Send this password to new user by email” box, unchecked. Don’t worry: you will go back and change this in the last step.
4. Tip No. 2: Choose a secure password: Do NOT, under any circumstances, choose a one word password followed by “123,” or “1234” because computer hackers have machines that sit over sites with consecutive numbers, until they break the code — ‘That was easy!’
5. Be sure to choose the role of “Administrator” so you can do absolutely anything on your own site
6. Click “Add New User”
7. Log out
8. Log back in using your new username and password

 

Next, change the user permissions under “admin”or, if you’re feeling lucky, move to the final step below (“Adieu admin!”)

1. Dashboard > Users > All Users
2. Click on “admin” username to display “Edit | Delete”
3. Choose Edit
4. Change the Role from “Administrator” to “Subscriber”
5. Choose Edit
6. Change the Role from “Administrator” to “Subscriber”

Adieu admin!

1. Dashboard > Users > All Users
2. Click on “admin” to display “Edit | Delete”
3. Take a deep breath and hit the “Delete” link
4. IMPORTANT: In the Delete Users pop-up window, be sure to check “Attribute all posts to”
5. If you have more than one post author, choose the name that best suits all your post attributions. If you do not do this, any post that was credited to “admin” will be deleted.
6. Click “Confirm deletion”

One final bit of housekeeping

1. If you had only one email address, you can now go back to change from the fake email address, to the real one.
2. To do this: Dashboard > Users > All Users
3. Click on your new user name
4. In the Profile window, under “Contact Info” enter your real email address
5. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click “Update Profile”

 Touché! You’ve turned pro.