About

Accounts and Email

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I build and run this site on my own, as an individual and not a company. This page describes how the site is meant to work and is kept accurate on a best-effort basis, but software has bugs, and the site may not always behave exactly as described. The Terms of Use explain what that means for you. First-person pronouns on these pages (I, me, my) refer to me, Ben Lambert.

This page explains what happens when you create an account on benlambert.tech, which emails the site sends, and how to change or delete your account. The Privacy Notice explains what the site does with your information; this page is about the mechanics.

Creating an account

The create account page asks for your first name, last name, email address, and a password of at least 8 characters, and asks you to complete a reCAPTCHA. It also has three checkboxes. Agreeing to the Terms of Use is required. Receiving newsletter emails and receiving product and marketing emails are both optional, and you can create an account without ticking either. Each email address can have one account. The site then gives you a random username and signs you in.

You can change your username on the settings page. A username is 2 to 30 characters of letters, numbers, dashes, and underscores, must not already be taken, and must not be offensive.

Verifying your email address

Right after you create an account, the site emails you a verification link. The link works for 10 minutes. Until you use it, a notification on the site reminds you to check your inbox, and your profile page shows the address as not yet verified.

If the link expires, or the email never arrives, check your spam and junk folders, then request a new link from your profile page. Requesting a new link also asks for a reCAPTCHA. The site sends one link at a time, so it will ask you to wait until the previous link has expired before sending another.

Resetting your password

If you forget your password, the forgot password page asks for your email address and a reCAPTCHA, and emails you a link to choose a new password. The link works for 15 minutes, and only one link is active at a time: if you ask again while your last link still works, no new email is sent, so look for the first one or wait for it to expire. No link is sent for a suspended account. The page shows the same message in every case, including when no account exists for the address, so that it does not reveal who has an account. If you did not ask for a reset, ignore the email: your password does not change unless the link is used.

The emails this site sends

The site is designed to send two emails automatically, both described above: an email verification link and a password reset link. Each is the result of creating an account or asking for a link. Both are plain text, come from a Gmail address, and have a subject line that starts with benlambert dot tech.

By creating an account, you also agree to receive essential notices at the email address on your account. I may send you one:

These notices are part of having an account, so there is no way to unsubscribe from them while you have one. Deleting your account stops them.

Newsletter emails and product and marketing emails are optional. The site sends them only while their checkboxes are ticked on your settings page, which start out as you left them when you created your account.

No email from this site asks you for your password or any other details, so treat any email that does as suspicious.

Signing in and staying signed in

The sign in page allows 5 attempts for an email address in 15 minutes, then asks you to wait before trying again. A successful sign-in clears the count, and so does resetting your password, which also ends the wait.

Signing in keeps you signed in on that browser for 7 days, after which you sign in again. Creating an account signs you in the same way, and so does opening an email verification link, on the browser where you open it. Changing your username, password, or optional email choices on that browser starts the 7 days over. Logging out from your profile page ends the session on that browser straight away. It does not sign you out of other browsers, and neither does changing or resetting your password, so a session elsewhere lasts until you log out there or its 7 days run out.

Changing your details

  • Username: the settings page.
  • Password: the settings page, which asks for your current password first.
  • First name, last name, and email address: these cannot be changed on the site yet. Email me at to have them corrected.
  • Newsletter emails and product and marketing emails: the settings page. Tick or untick either checkbox, then choose Save.

Deleting your account

Open your settings page, choose Delete Account, and confirm. Deletion happens immediately and cannot be undone. It is designed to remove your name, email address, username, password, notifications, and any count of recent sign-in attempts, and to scrub your email address out of the site's records of the emails it sent you, so that nothing that identifies you is left behind. It signs you out of the browser you delete from, but not other browsers: until you log out there or their 7 days run out, they may still show your name and email address from their session cookies, though the account itself is gone. If you think something was missed, email me at to have it removed.