Can I change my username?

Once you have created your Aster account, the username you choose will stay with you for good, meaning it is unchangeable. There is no way to rename it from your settings, and our support team cannot change it on your behalf.

On the bright side, you are never stuck with an address you want to change. There are a couple of simple and reliable ways to end up with exactly the name you want.

Why your username is permanent

The reason comes down to the fact that your username is also your email address. A surprising number of things depend on it whenever the address is created. People will save your address in their contacts, and friends and services will send mail to it. Because on Aster everything is end-to-end encrypted, the public key that lets others write to you securely is tied directly to your address as well.

If we allowed a username to be renamed after the fact, all of those connections would break in ways that are easy to overlook. Messages sent to your old address would simply stop arriving, and anyone who had already saved your address would be writing to someone who no longer exists. The key lookups that make encrypted mail work would fail in the background.

Rather than roll out a convenience feature that ends up breaking delivery for you and the people trying to reach you, we keep usernames fixed and unchangeable. This is the same approach most privacy-focused providers have settled on for these exact reasons.

What to do instead

If the name you have today is not the one that you want going forward, you have two solid options. Which one makes sense really depends on what you’re trying to accomplish.

The most straightforward path is to create a second account, since our Terms of Service allow you to hold more than one Aster account at a time. This means you can register a fresh account under the username you want and start using it right away. This is the route to take if you’d like an address on our aster.cx domain rather than the default domain.

If you have already built up mail in your original account, you can export it through settings and bring it into the new one, so none of your mail gets left behind. The only detail worth noting is that there is a limit on how many accounts a single person can hold. Because that number can change over time, the current figure will always be listed in our Terms of Service, so it is always worth a quick look before you set up multiple accounts.

Alternatively, if you are already happy with the account you have and simply want another address that will go toward the same inbox without having to use a separate login every time, creating an alias is the better way to go. Anything sent to that alias will arrive alongside the rest of your mail, and you are able to send outgoing messages from it just as easily. The entire thing will stay attached to the account that you are already using.

As a quick rule of thumb, a second account is the better choice when you want a clean, separate identity or an address on aster.cx. An alias is the better choice when all you need is one more address linking to the inbox you already have created.

Common questions

I made a typo in my username when I signed up. Can you fix it?

Unfortunately, even a small typo cannot be corrected once the account exists for all the same reasons described above. The easiest solution would be to create a new account with the spelling you intended and delete the old one whenever you no longer have use for it.

Can your support team change my username as a one-time exception?

There is simply no tool on our end that is able to rename an existing account. This means this is not something we are able to offer to anyone, regardless of the situation, however reasonable the request happens to be.

What happens to my original account if I create a new one?

Nothing happens to it unless you decide otherwise. Your original account would stay active, and it would continue receiving mail up until the moment you decide to delete it. You are completely free to keep both inboxes if that works for you.

Can I bring my old emails over to the new account?

Bringing your history along is fairly easy because you are able to export the mail from your existing account and import it into a new account. Switching between different usernames does not have to mean leaving your mail behind.

How do I get an address on aster.cx?

You would need to create an account on the aster.cx domain. Because that counts as a separate account, the same permanence applies to it as well. It is worth choosing the name thoughtfully from the start.