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Accounts

Your account is how you sign in. Your identity is how you exist across DFOS — the permanent reference that your profile, content, and memberships attach to.

Signing in​

There are no passwords. You sign in with a one-time code sent to your email, or with Google. Your email is also how DFOS reaches you — you can change it in settings, verified by a code sent to the new address.

Your profile​

You control what represents you: display name, avatar, a short bio, and up to three links. Your @handle can be changed too — handles are yours as long as you hold them, and everything you've made follows you through a rename.

You also choose which spaces show on your public profile. Under Settings → Public profile → Spaces on your profile, pick which of your public spaces appear, and feature up to five of them at the top, each with a short note of your own.

Who sees your profile, and the optional switch that publishes it to the wider network, is covered in Who can see what.

What's tied to you​

  • Your profile and settings
  • The spaces and groups you're a member of
  • The posts, messages, and media you create
  • Your wallet — purchases, balance, and payout details

Content you create stays attributed to your identity, including after you leave a space.

Privacy controls​

Two settings worth knowing about:

  • Public profile — in Settings → Public profile, on by default; your profile is published to the DFOS protocol network, which gives you a page on the open web at dfos.com/u/yourhandle. Anyone can open it without a DFOS account: it shows your name, avatar, bio, links, and the public spaces you belong to, and it offers visitors a Follow button. Private-space memberships are never listed, and you can hide any individual space. Turn the setting off and that public page goes away. People signed in to DFOS can still look up your name, handle, and avatar. See The protocol.
  • Direct messages — in Settings → Privacy & safety, open by default; you can restrict new conversations to people you share a space with or follow. See Chat & messages.

One thing to know about your email: it is never on your public profile and never on the protocol network, but you can choose to share it. When another app offers a "Sign in with DFOS" button, reading your email is its own thing to ask for, separate from reading your name, handle, and avatar — and the consent screen shows you the actual address, spelled out, before you approve. Nothing is shared if you decline, and just signing in shares no email at all. See Signing in to another app.

If you own a domain, you can verify it against your identity from Settings → Verified domain, which proves you control it and nothing else. It does not host your profile at that domain. See Verified domains.

Your data​

You can download a copy of your data from Settings → Your data. Building it takes a while, longer if you've uploaded a lot of media. The settings page shows its progress, and DFOS emails you when you request it and again when it's ready. Those two emails follow the same email switch as activity mail; see Notifications. If mail to your address has been bouncing, these emails may be held back for a while, so check Settings for the export itself. You can request one export every 24 hours; an export that fails doesn't count.

The archive covers what existed in your account when you made the request. Anything created after that waits for your next export. It holds what you made, the conversations you're part of, and what DFOS records about you:

  • Your account and profile: email, handle, settings, profile links, and pinned spaces
  • Your protocol identity record and its public keys
  • The spaces and groups you belong to or used to, your applications, and the invites you created
  • Posts and comments you wrote, your reactions, and your bookmarks
  • Messages you wrote in space chat and threads
  • Direct and group conversations you're still in, with both sides. For conversations you left, only your own messages.
  • Events you created, your RSVPs, and messages you sent to attendees
  • Your orders, the products you hold, subscriptions, downloads, wallet ledger, withdrawals, and payouts you received
  • People you follow and people who follow you
  • Your notification history
  • The original files you uploaded

Other people's posts and messages are left out, except in conversations you're part of. So are member and subscriber lists of spaces you run, bank details beyond the bank name and last four digits, and your sign-in history. The README inside the archive lists everything that's left out.

You download one zip file with your uploads and your records side by side. Open the README first: it explains what each part of the archive holds and how to check that nothing changed in transit.

The files stay available for 7 days after the export finishes, and then they're deleted. Each download link is made when you click Download and stops working after an hour. When a newer export is ready, it replaces the previous one. Deleting your account deletes your export too.

Leaving​

You can leave any space, or delete your account entirely, at any time. See Leaving for exactly what happens.