Creating your account

Registering

The Create account form asks for three things: an email address, a password, and an optional referral code. The password has to be at least ten characters and include an upper-case letter, a lower-case letter, a digit and a symbol. The form shows a live checklist of those requirements, so you can see what is still missing before you submit.

The referral code is optional and never required. If you arrived through someone's referral link it is filled in for you, and you are free to change or clear it. A code that is not recognised is ignored — it can never stop your account being created.

Confirming your email address

After you submit, the page tells you to check your email. It says the same thing whether or not that address could be registered, on purpose: the form must not be usable to work out who already has an account here.

You cannot sign in until you have confirmed. Follow the link in the email and a page tells you your address is confirmed and points you at sign-in. If the link has expired or has already been used, that page says so instead.

If the confirmation email does not arrive

Check your spam or junk folder first — it is by far the most common cause.

If it is not there, submit the sign-up form again with the same address. An account that has never been confirmed is sent a fresh confirmation link, so registering a second time is how you ask for a new one rather than an error.

The Forgot password? link on the sign-in page works too. For an address that has not been confirmed yet, that sends the confirmation link rather than a reset link, so an unconfirmed account is never a dead end.

Signing in

Sign in with the email address and password you registered. If you have turned on two-factor authentication for your account, you are asked for a code next — from an authenticator app, or an emailed code if you have that turned on too — and a recovery code is accepted in its place. Two-factor authentication covers turning it on and what to do if you lose every factor.

Repeated failed attempts lock the account for a while, and the sign-in page tells you when that has happened. Wait it out rather than retrying, and use Forgot password? if you are no longer sure of the password. A reset link arrives by email, and it expires — if one has been sitting in your inbox for a while, ask for a fresh one rather than using it.

Once you are in, you are taken straight to setup. The setup wizard walks through it.