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How to change your Minecraft username

You change your Minecraft username on minecraft.net, in your profile. It is free and takes a minute, but you can only do it once every 30 days, and your old name does not come back to you automatically. Here is what to check first and what happens after.

Before you change it

Free

the change costs nothing

30 days

between two changes, by player reports

3–16

characters: English letters, digits, underscores

This is the name of your Minecraft account. It is the name Mojang profiles show, the one other players see on servers. Bedrock on consoles and phones uses Xbox gamertags instead: that is a different system and this guide is not about it.
Check the rules. 3 to 16 characters, English letters, digits and underscores, no spaces. The full list is in our Minecraft username rules.
Check that the name is free. Type it on our Minecraft page: it costs nothing and shows whether a Mojang profile with this name exists.
Think twice about a rare name. Once you change it, your old name can be taken by someone else after the hold, and you cannot change again for 30 days.

How to change it on minecraft.net

The change is made on the Minecraft website, not in the game or the launcher. Menu labels on the site change from time to time, so the wording below may differ slightly from what you see.

Open your profile

Go to your profile and find Minecraft in the list of your games. The profile name is shown next to it.

Choose to change the profile name

Open the profile name and type the new one. The site tells you right away whether the name is available.

Confirm the change

Save the new name. Restart the launcher and sign in to the game again: servers see the new name the next time you join.

Your skin, worlds and purchases stay as they are: they belong to the account, not to the name.

The 30-day wait

Players report that the name can be changed no more often than once every 30 days (Minecraft Wiki). There is no paid way around it, and pages that offer to skip the wait want your password.

So treat a change as a decision for at least a month. If you made a typo, you will live with it for 30 days.

What happens to your old name

It disappears from Mojang profiles at once. A lookup of the old name stops finding your account right after the change.
Nobody can take it straight away. According to players, the old name is held for about 37 days and only then becomes available to others (Minecraft Wiki). This is community data, not an official promise.
You can go back before that. The wait between changes is 30 days and the hold is a week longer, so the owner has a few days to return to the old name before anyone else can take it.
After the hold, the name is anyone's. If it is short or a real word, expect other players to be waiting for it.

That hold is why a name with no profile is not always free to take. Our guide on when Minecraft names free up explains how to read it.

If the name is not accepted

The name is not available

Someone has it now, it is on hold after its owner changed it, or it is banned. The site does not say which. Try a variation with a digit or an underscore, or put the name on a watchlist and wait.

You changed your name recently

Fewer than 30 days have passed since your last change. Nothing speeds this up: wait for the date the site shows.

Invalid characters

Use English letters, digits 0 to 9 and underscores. No spaces, dots, hyphens or accents, and 3 to 16 characters in total.

Looking for a short or rare name first? Read how to find an available Minecraft username and what counts as an OG name. Clmify scans Minecraft names on our servers and alerts you when a name you watch leaves Mojang profiles: see the Minecraft sniper and pricing.

All guides

When do Minecraft names free up? The name hold explainedA Minecraft name frees up when its owner changes it, but only after a hold of about 37 days. What the name drop window is and how to be first to claim it.OG Minecraft usernames: 3 letters, words and old namesWhat players call an OG Minecraft name, why almost every 3-letter name is taken, where 4 and 5 letters still appear and why buying an account is a risk.How to find an available Minecraft usernameIdeas for Minecraft names that are not taken, patterns that still have free names, how to check availability and what to do when the name you want is taken.Minecraft username rules: length, characters, caseMinecraft username rules in one place: 3 to 16 characters, English letters, digits and underscores, how case works, old short names and Bedrock gamertags.