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Accounts ​

An Observable account makes it possible for you to use the Observable platform and collaborate with others.

Create an account ​

To get started, click the Sign up button on https://www.observablehq.com.

Note

If you fork a notebook before you have created an account, you will be asked to sign up to save your fork; the dialog box will look very similar to the one below.

Continue with... (or email) ​

After you click Sign Up, you are asked to select an authentication provider. You can choose from several organizations where you may already have an account.

Screenshot of the sign up form with options to log in using Github, Google, Microsoft, SSO, or Email
Choose from multiple authentication providers.

If you choose to sign up with your email address, you'll receive an email link from notifications@mail.observablehq.com to confirm your email address. (If you do not see the email, be sure to check your spam folder.)

Create your display name ​

After choosing an authentication method, you'll see the Welcome to Observable screen where you enter your display name.

Screenshot of the form saying Welcome to Observable, and an input field to enter your desire display name
Welcome page

Your account profile consists of the following items:

  • Avatar: Every user on Observable has an avatar, which either gets auto-populated from your authentication provider or generated by Observable. If you want to change your avatar after signup, go to your Settings and scroll down to Personal profile. You will see a link to upload your own avatar image.
  • Display name: This is the name you entered at signup, and appears on notebooks that you create. You can change your display name at any time by going to your Settings and scrolling down to Personal profile. You will see a form to change your display name.
  • Username: Your username was auto-assigned at signup. This name will be used in the URLs for your notebooks. You can change this name once by going to your Settings and clicking the Change username button. Note that this does not 'free up' your existing username, since you may have shared links with this username.

Delete an account ​

Note

Deleting your Observable account means that all of the following will be removed:

  • Your authenticated identities/user IDs.
  • Your notebooks.
  • Your comments in notebooks.
  • Your metadata such as secrets, database connections, etc.

In addition, you will be removed from any Observable teams that you are a member of.

Please be certain that you do want to delete your account before proceeding.

You can delete your Observable account from your Settings page:

Screenshot of the navigation sidebar on the user home page, with the Settings item highlighted
Click Settings on your Home page to begin the process of account deletion.

On the General page of Settings, click the Delete account button:

Screenshot of the General section on the settings page, with the Delete account item at the bottom
Click Delete account to delete your account.

If you are a team owner, you will be asked to first remove yourself from all teams that you belong to:

Screenshot of the Delete your account dialog, with the Delete account button disabled because the user is an owner of several teams and must remove themselves from them first
If you are a team owner, you must first remove yourself from all teams.

Note

If you are the only member of a team, you will have to delete the team before you can delete your account. In order to do that, please email support@observablehq.com.

After that, or if you are an individual account owner, you see the following modal:

Screenshot of the Delete your account dialog, with two input fields. The first is for the user's username or email, the second requires the words, delete my account, before the delete button becomes active
Enter your username or email and type the confirmation phrase to delete your account.

Your account will then be scheduled for deletion. If you have specified your email address, you will receive an email confirmation of the deletion request.

Account settings ​

General ​

This is where you configure your account, profile, and preferences.

  • Account
    • Set or change your username (which appears in the URLs of the your profile and notebooks).
    • Change your tier (for example, from the Free tier to the Pro tier).
    • Set or change the email address to receive notifications and messaging about the account.
    • Delete your account if desired.
  • Personal profile
    • Customize your avatar and banner.
    • Set your display name and pronouns.
    • Write a brief biography.
    • Specify any Web sites that you wish to have associated with your profile.
    • Specify a publicly-visible email address.
  • Editor Preferences
    • Enable or disable the automatic insertion of closing parentheses and brackets.
    • Enable or disable the use of Prettier to format code in all team notebooks.
    • Enable or disable spell checking in Markdown cells and comments (where supported by browser).
    • Enable or disable keyboard shortcuts to make it easier to create new JavaScript cells.
  • Misc preferences
    • Show or hide the Quick guides on your home page.

Moderation ​

Enables you to block users or teams from sending invitations to join their team. When you receive an invitation to join a team, a link appears at the bottom of the invitation, enabling you to block the user or the team sending the invitation:

A screenshot of the invitation email sent when adding a user to a team, with the options to block to user or team highlighted on the bottom
You can block either a user or a particular team from sending invitations.

Clicking either link will ask you to confirm:

A screenshot of the block team dialog with the options to cancel or confirm
Click Confirm to make the blocking action final.

Once you have blocked a user or workspace, it will show up under the Moderation heading:

A screenshot of the moderation settings page, listing blocked teams
Example of a blocked workspace.

API Keys ​

Use API keys to securely load and embed private notebooks outside of Observable.

OAuth Tokens ​

OAuth tokens are used to allow notebooks to access data in cloud files. After you have signed in to the cloud service provider for a given cloud file, an OAuth token is stored in your Settings so that you will not have to sign in each time you want to visit a notebook that requires them. See Cloud Files for more information.