Greetings, friends!
As we all prepare for the migration to the WordPress version of the site, currently scheduled for April 15, 2026, we’re going to take a few opportunities to post and repost “Preparing for site migration” stories covering what you, dear site community users, need to know to ready yourselves for as seamless a move as possible to the new site.
In the coming weeks you can expect to see stories and/or comments from several of us (Allison McHenry, iterology, and minos) providing updates on changes to site features, in tandem with Markos’ general updates on site migration progress. All of these stories will be collected in the Daily Kos Announcements Group.
And you can help by spreading the word: mentioning these stories to friends among our community of site users, linking to these stories in your community Groups as a heads-up, and republishing these stories to your active Groups for visibility among your membership. Forewarned is forearmed.
Without further ado, then... let’s talk about your login credentials.
THE MIGRATION PROCESS WILL LOG ALL USERS OUT OF THEIR ACCOUNTS, SO ALL USERS WILL BE REQUIRED TO LOG INTO THEIR ACCOUNTS ON FIRST VISIT TO THE NEW VERSION OF THE SITE
We know that quite a few of you rarely if ever log out (perhaps not since the “Great Mandatory Password Reset” of July 2019), and there’s a good chance that some of you may not recall your passwords. In addition, users accustomed to signing into their accounts with their username (+ password) rather than their email address of record (+ password) may never have updated their account profiles with an up-to-date email address. A current and functional email address is REQUIRED for password management.
Now is the time for you to verify 1) that you have a current and functional email address of record associated to your Daily Kos site user account and 2) that you know your password. And the order here is critical (first verify the email address, then ensure your password): our automated password reset process uses the email address of record.
1) Verify and if necessary update your email address of record:
screencaps of the check/edit email address process
- when you are logged into your account, click on the circular avatar icon at the top right of the page, on which click the Profile link to open your user Profile page
- on your user Profile page, click the Edit My Profile button to open the Profile Editor
- in the Profile Editor, view the Email Address field to see your existing email address of record
- if the address in that field is a current functional email address, you’re all set and you can exit the Profile Editor
- if the address in that field is one to which you no longer have access, enter a current and functional email address in the field, then scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the Save Changes button
Good to go? Alrighty then… onward to password management!
2) Confirm the functionality of your current password, reset if necessary:
STOP: did you first verify or update your email address of record? You must have a current and functional email address in the event you need to reset your password.
A) Confident you know your password? Great! But it can’t hurt to go ahead and double-check that by logging out and then logging back in; if you can log back in, then you’re good to go.
B) Not confident that you know your password? Since you’ve already verified (hint, hint, hint) that your email address of record is current and functional, you’ll need to take the admittedly fear-inducing step of logging out and (attempting) logging back in.
[NOTE: if you are logged into your Daily Kos account on multiple devices and/or browsers, and it turns out that you need to reset your password, you must make sure that you are logged out from ALL those devices and/or browsers before using the automated password reset process or the process will fail.]
screencaps of the reset forgotten password process, 1
If you get an error message in the login pop-up, click the Forgot my password? link, which will open a new page asking for your email address of record. Enter your email address of record and click the Reset Password button. This will initiate an email sent from donotreply@dailykos.com to your email address of record, which should arrive within a few minutes.
screencaps of the reset forgotten password process, 2
Click the Reset Password button within that email, follow the prompts, and you should end with the confirmation message "Your new password has been saved. Login to continue." At that point—having carefully recorded your new password somewhere safe and secure—you’ll be all set to log back into Daily Kos.
These steps are also described under OPTION TWO at this Knowledge Base resource.
All squared away? You’ve verified your email address of record and you’ve either confirmed your existing password or reset and safely stored your new password? Awesome. Then you’ll be all set to login at the newly launched site and get a comfy seat.
As always, if you encounter any unexpected issues managing your email address of record or your password reset, reach out to our Help Desk team for assistance. Just click on the Help Desk button in the top navigation bar of any site page, be in “Ask” mode, and compose and send a message describing the issue. The more details you provide describing the issue, the better they will be able to assist.
Questions? Concerns? Ask away in the comments. We’re here to help.
P.S.: for those of you who will participate in beta testing, please note that use of the beta site will involve creating a new account for use ONLY at the beta site, and that account (and associated content) will exist ONLY for the duration of the beta testing. The username, email address of record, and password for an account on the beta site are independent from your existing account here, and beta accounts will not be migrated to the new version of the site.
