WordPress User Registration Without Username Requirement

We’ve had a number of requests from our customers asking if it’s possible to create a WordPress registration form where users can register without a username. Technically, this is impossible because WordPress requires all users to have a username.

In this tutorial, I will be showing us a fool-proof way on how to create a user registration form without a username field that just works.

Building the Registration Form

* Open up the edit screen of the ProfilePress registration form you are using by clicking on its title in the WordPress backend.

* Remove the username block or shortcode (if you are using the advanced form builder).

* Go to the form settings and check the Disable Username Requirement checkbox.

With the above steps done, users signing up via the registration form will automatically have a username generated for them from their email address.

For example, say a user registered with [email protected], johndoe automatically becomes his username. And if the username already exists, it becomes “johndoe1”.

Modifying Registration Errors

Note: all code snippet in this post should go into your theme’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin.

Below are the username generated error messages of a WordPress registration form.

Username may not be longer than 60 characters.
Sorry, that username already exists!
Sorry, that username is not allowed.

The code below replaces “username” in these error messages with “email address”.

add_filter( 'gettext', 'change_registration_username_errors', 10, 3 );
function change_registration_username_errors( $translations, $text, $domain ) {
	if ( $domain == 'default' ) {

		if ( $text == 'Username may not be longer than 60 characters.' ) {
			$translations = 'Email address may not be longer than 60 characters.';
		} elseif ( $text == 'Sorry, that username already exists!' ) {
			$translations = 'Sorry, that email address already exists!';
		} elseif ( $text == 'Sorry, that username is not allowed.' ) {
			$translations = 'Sorry, that email address is not allowed.';
		}
	}

	return $translations;
}

Modifying Login Errors

We should be done by now, but we still need to modify username generated errors in the WordPress login form to make it fool-proof.

The code below does that excellently well.

add_filter( 'gettext', 'change_login_username_errors', 10, 3 );
function change_login_username_errors( $translations, $text, $domain ) {
	if ( $domain == 'default' ) {

		if ( $text == '<strong>ERROR</strong>: Invalid username.' ) {
			$translations = '<strong>ERROR</strong>: Invalid email.';
		} elseif ( $text == '<strong>ERROR</strong>: The password you entered for the username %s is incorrect.' ) {
			$translations = '<strong>ERROR</strong>: The password you entered for the email address %s is incorrect.';
		} elseif ( $text == '<strong>ERROR</strong>: The username field is empty.' ) {
			$translations = '<strong>ERROR</strong>: The email field is empty.';
		} elseif ( $text == '<strong>ERROR</strong>: Invalid username or incorrect password.' ) {
			$translations = '<strong>ERROR</strong>: Invalid email address or incorrect password.';
		}
	}

	return $translations;
}