How To Change TikTok Username (And What Happens When You Do)

Just like any social app, usernames are a critical part of the TikTok experience. Every TikTok user is asked to create a username upon setting up their account, but if someone decides they don’t like their name later on down the road, they can quickly change it in a matter of seconds.

Similar to apps like Twitter and Instagram, TikTok’s social element revolves around ‘following’ other users. If someone finds an account that’s creating really great content, following the user will result in their videos being surfaced more often on the follower’s For You Page. As mentioned above, usernames are used to distinguish accounts from one another. Some people use their TikTok username to reflect their brand/content; others simply use their real name for their username. There’s no right or wrong way to create a TikTok username, and — thankfully — changing it is incredibly easy.

To change a TikTok username, TikTok’s instructions are as follows: open the TikTok app, tap the ‘Me’ shortcut on the bottom navigation bar, and then tap the edit button next to the username (the one that looks like a pencil). This takes users to their username settings, where they can immediately start typing a new name of their choosing. Once done, tap the ‘Save’ button in the upper-right corner.

What Happens When You Change A TikTok Username

While changing a TikTok username is quite easy, there are a few things to keep in mind when doing so. For starters, TikTok only allows certain characters in its usernames. Per the company’s support website, “Usernames can only contain letters, numbers, underscores, and periods. However, periods can’t be put at the end of the username.” TikTok also notes that usernames can only be changed once every 30 days, so double-check that there aren’t any spelling errors before saving.

Furthermore, it’s important to remember that changing a TikTok username will also change the URL associated with that account. For example, if someone’s profile URL was ‘www.tiktok.com/user123’ but they changed their username to ‘ScreenRantIsTheBest,’ the URL would change to ‘www.tiktok.com/screenrantisthebest.’ If someone has their TikTok URL added to Twitter, Instagram, or anywhere else on the internet, it’s worth making sure that gets updated when doing a username change.

Outside of that, there’s not much else users have to worry about. All of their followers will remain intact even with a different username, their For You page recommendations won’t be different, and the rest of the app experience will remain exactly the same. It’s probably best to keep TikTok username changes to a minimum as not to confuse followers too much, but then again, there’s nothing stopping anyone from doing that if they so choose.

Source: TikTok

About The Author

Joe Maring
(1521 Articles Published)

Joe has been actively writing and talking about consumer tech since 2012. His biggest passion lies with smartphones, but he’s happy to talk your ear off about just about anything with a CPU. He lives in Kalamazoo, MI with his wife, two cats, and pit bull/boxer mix.

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