# 'Staged User' issue
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/staged-user-issue/340354
**Category:** Support
**Tags:** email, staged-users, merge-user
**Created:** [December 4, 2024, 12:59pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/staged-user-issue/340354 "2024-12-04T12:59:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@vwcnot](https://meta.discourse.org/u/vwcnot)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2024, 12:59pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/staged-user-issue/340354/1 "2024-12-04T12:59:25Z")
I have taken over a co-moderator of a Discourse forum. A user wishes me to change their primary email. When I enter the new email address and click on the ‘Change’ button I get the following error message:
“There was an error changing your email address. The address is already in use by a staged user.”
I would be grateful for any help in what I need to do to troubleshoot/solve this issue.
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2024, 1:55pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/staged-user-issue/340354/2 "2024-12-04T13:55:41Z")
Search for the address in /admin/users, delete the staged user, and then tell the user that they can change their own address.
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### Author:  [@vwcnot](https://meta.discourse.org/u/vwcnot)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2024, 2:11pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/staged-user-issue/340354/3 "2024-12-04T14:11:54Z")
Thank you for the response. A search for the email address, only shows 1 email, that for the user themselves.
Do you mean that I have to delete the user entirely? If so, will they have create a new account? And what happens to all their existing posts.
Apologies in advance: I am new to the use of Discourse.
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2024, 2:42pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/staged-user-issue/340354/4 "2024-12-04T14:42:26Z")
If the NEW address belongs to the user, then they’ve already changed the address. If the new and old addresses belong to different users then you could also merge the two users. Usually staged users don’t matter, which is why I thought deleting it might make sense, but merging is probably a better idea.
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### Author:  [@vwcnot](https://meta.discourse.org/u/vwcnot)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2024, 4:16pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/staged-user-issue/340354/5 "2024-12-04T16:16:29Z")
Thank you for the reply. I havd not noticed that there is a ‘Staged’ tab, and the person is user there too.
If I merge the two together, what happens to the posts for both users, are the merged together?
And hopefully the last question: once merged can I delete the Staged user if there are posts more than 60 days old (based on ‘Users can’t be deleted if they have posts. Delete all posts before trying to delete a user. (Posts older than 60 days old can’t be deleted.’)?
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2024, 5:33pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/staged-user-issue/340354/6 "2024-12-04T17:33:33Z")
Hopefully [Merging user accounts](https://meta.discourse.org/t/merging-user-accounts/275288) answers your questions. 🙂
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### Author:  [@vwcnot](https://meta.discourse.org/u/vwcnot)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2024, 6:18pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/staged-user-issue/340354/7 "2024-12-04T18:18:17Z")
Jay,
Thank you very much for your help. The page does answer the questions.
Victor
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2025, 6:18pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/staged-user-issue/340354/8 "2025-01-03T18:18:43Z")
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