Member accounts

Let visitors sign in to your website, and keep some pages for members only. Good for a client area, a members' handbook, resources you do not want public, or anything you would otherwise be emailing out one at a time.

The short version

Turn on User Accounts on your site's Members tab.
That puts a login page at /login on your site.
Mark any page members only and it needs a login.
Add members yourself, or let visitors sign up themselves.
These are visitors to your site, not people on your team.

Members are not your team

Worth getting straight before anything else, because they are two completely separate lists.

Your team is the people who build your sites with you here. Your members are visitors who log in to the published site. A member has no access to this workspace at all, cannot edit anything, and never sees the editor.

Turning it on

Set User Accounts to enabled on the Members tab of your website's settings. That makes a login page available at /login on your site.

Nothing becomes private just from switching this on. It gives you the ability to make pages members only; which pages, if any, is still up to you.

Making a page members only

Each page has its own setting. Visitors who are not signed in get sent to your login page and land back on the page they wanted once they are.

Your own team can still preview a members-only page from the editor without signing in as a member, so you can check your work without keeping a test account.

Adding members yourself

Add them one at a time with a name, email address and password, or invite them by email so they set their own password. Inviting is usually better: nobody has to send a password around, and you never have to store one.

Turn on Visitor Sign-up and your login page grows a sign-up form, so people can create their own account without you doing anything.

New sign-ups have to confirm their email address before the account becomes active. That keeps your member list to real addresses, and it means somebody who signs up and never confirms does not become a member.

Leave this off if membership is something you grant rather than something people take. A client area wants accounts you created; a community resource might not.

Forgotten passwords

Members reset their own password from your login page. You do not need to be involved, and you never see their password.

Managing members

The Members section of your website lists everybody, and you can edit or remove any of them. Removing somebody takes effect immediately: they can no longer sign in and members-only pages stop being reachable for them.

If member accounts stop working

Member accounts are an add-on. If it comes off your subscription, sign-in closes and members-only pages stop being reachable.

Nothing is deleted. Your member list stays exactly as it was, and adding the add-on back brings sign-in straight back with everybody still on it.