# Possible to change joined date?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/possible-to-change-joined-date/31331
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [July 23, 2015, 6:52am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/possible-to-change-joined-date/31331 "2015-07-23T06:52:49Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ndalliard](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ndalliard)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2015, 6:52am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/possible-to-change-joined-date/31331/1 "2015-07-23T06:52:50Z")
Hello everyone,
this is my first post here, I hope I am doing everything right.
**Is it possible to change the joined date for any given user?**
I ask, because I want to bootstrap my forum and make it ready for launch day, but I want the first user (admin and system) to be joined on launch day and not before. Any idea how I could achieve that if I can not change the joined date?
I could delete my admin account on launch day an register a new one. Is that possible with the user @system ?
Thanks guys, the software is really easy and fast to install. I love it so far!
Greetings from switzerland!
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2015, 7:25am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/possible-to-change-joined-date/31331/2 "2015-07-23T07:25:44Z")
Only from SQL at the Ruby command prompt. Not in the UI at this time. But changing it via a DB query should be straightforward, there are some howtos here on that.
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### Author:  [@ndalliard](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ndalliard)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2015, 7:32am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/possible-to-change-joined-date/31331/3 "2015-07-23T07:32:46Z")
Thanks @codinghorror, I tried to search for the mentioned howtos, but I can’t find them. Can you please link to them.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2015, 7:36am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/possible-to-change-joined-date/31331/4 "2015-07-23T07:36:37Z")
Yeah good point I did some searching but nothing good came up immediately. We should have a dedicated howto topic for entering the container, and running an arbitrary SQL query. @techapj can you assist?
It’s kind of like this
> [@Edit a user preference for everyone or a subset of users](https://meta.discourse.org/t/edit-a-user-setting-for-all-discourse-users/25162):
>
> bookmark This guide explains how to edit a user preference for everyone or a subset of users in Discourse. person_raising_hand Required user level: System Administrator warning Console access is required. If you need to update the user preference for all of your users or a large subset of users, you can do so via the rails console. Summary In this guide, you’ll learn: How to access the Rails console for making bulk changes Examples of modifying user preferences How to identify se…
But more generic. That’s basically impossible to find if you want to just “run a query” against your Discourse database.
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### Author:  [@ndalliard](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ndalliard)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2015, 7:54am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/possible-to-change-joined-date/31331/5 "2015-07-23T07:54:21Z")
If me and @system are the only two users in the forum I can run a query to change the joined date for all users, as mentioned in the topic you linked. But I’ve no idea how that query should look like. I will wait for @techapj, hopefully he can help me with that.
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### Author:  [@krilnon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/krilnon)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2015, 7:56am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/possible-to-change-joined-date/31331/6 "2015-07-23T07:56:23Z")
I did some manual join date modification for some of the oldest users on a forum when I migrated. Like Jeff suggested, you basically need to pick out the users manually, like so:
```ruby
user = User.find_by(username: 'krilnon')
user.created_at = Time.now
# user.created_at = Time.parse('2013-02-04 3:00 PM') # to backdate
user.save!
```
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### Author:  [@ndalliard](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ndalliard)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2015, 8:06am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/possible-to-change-joined-date/31331/7 "2015-07-23T08:06:11Z")
That worked just perfect on point. Thanks a lot @krilnon! 👊
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### Author:  [@zogstrip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/zogstrip)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2015, 9:15am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/possible-to-change-joined-date/31331/8 "2015-07-23T09:15:28Z")