# Make it possible to activate a changed email address in the Admin UI
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/make-it-possible-to-activate-a-changed-email-address-in-the-admin-ui/396760
**Category:** Feature
**Tags:** users
**Created:** [February 23, 2026, 4:06am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/make-it-possible-to-activate-a-changed-email-address-in-the-admin-ui/396760 "2026-02-23T04:06:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@nathank](https://meta.discourse.org/u/nathank)
#### Post date: [February 23, 2026, 4:06am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/make-it-possible-to-activate-a-changed-email-address-in-the-admin-ui/396760/1 "2026-02-23T04:06:50Z")
It is not currently possible for an admin to change a user’s email address unilaterally without diving into the console. I find that I need to do this fairly often:
> [@Change staff email address from console](https://meta.discourse.org/t/change-staff-email-address-from-console/42062):
>
> bookmark This guide describes how to change a staff member’s email address from the console using the Rails console. It applies to situations where an administrator needs to update an email without confirmation from the old address. person_raising_hand Required user level: System Administrator warning Console access required In Discourse, for enhanced security, staff members must confirm changes to their email addresses from both the new and old email addresses. However, this creates…
It isn’t just for staff emails. I find that email clients (especially Outlook) manage to successfully de-emphasise the confirmation email so much that users are quite unlikely to confirm their new email address.
This is a particular problem as people move between organisations (and thus email addresses) - this seems to happen quite a bit in our sector.
In practice this means having to chase the users who have had their emails changed, which is quite tedious. Or dive into the console.
As I’m self-hosted and can access the rails console, this isn’t a big deal (just a bit tedious) - but I imagine it could be quite painful for many on paid hosting plans.
I wonder if this might make things easier?
1. Enabling editing of email addresses from the /admin/users pages
_and_
2. Enable the easy activating of this change on the same page if/when required
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### Author:  [@k4rtik](https://meta.discourse.org/u/k4rtik)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2026, 1:35pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/make-it-possible-to-activate-a-changed-email-address-in-the-admin-ui/396760/2 "2026-02-28T13:35:38Z")
I have the same issue and can’t find a way to confirm the new email ID of a staged user who only interacts via email. I unfortunately don’t have access to the rails console.
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### Author:  [@nathank](https://meta.discourse.org/u/nathank)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2026, 6:49pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/make-it-possible-to-activate-a-changed-email-address-in-the-admin-ui/396760/3 "2026-03-18T18:49:55Z")
You could probably address that by merging the two accounts (assuming the new one is staged too) and then deleting defunct email.
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### Author:  [@k4rtik](https://meta.discourse.org/u/k4rtik)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2026, 1:31pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/make-it-possible-to-activate-a-changed-email-address-in-the-admin-ui/396760/4 "2026-03-19T13:31:08Z")
I don’t think the system allows merging staged accounts. I tried on both sides, the username of the other account both leads to “No matches found” in the username field of Merge action.
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### Author:  [@nathank](https://meta.discourse.org/u/nathank)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2026, 10:10pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/make-it-possible-to-activate-a-changed-email-address-in-the-admin-ui/396760/5 "2026-06-14T22:10:03Z")
Yes, you are correct, only full accounts appear in the username field. Therefore, this only works if you merge into an existing account.
You can then change the primary email to that of the ex-staged account.