What is Persona and how does it work?

This article is no longer maintained, so its content might be out of date.

As of November 30th 2016, the persona.org service is no longer supported and is shutting down. Persona.org and related domains will be taken offline before the end of 2016.

Mozilla Persona is an easy way to sign in to websites. Instead of making up a hard-to-remember username and password for each site, Persona lets you use your email address to sign in to any site that supports it. This article shows you how Persona works and how you can get started using it.

Note: See How do I manage my Persona account? for instructions to remove email addresses.

How does it work?

Persona lets you log in to websites using only your email address! Persona lets you prove your identity to websites through your email address without giving them any passwords. This works similarly to how you prove your identity when you show someone your ID: websites can easily verify that your ID is authentic and that you really are the person it was issued to.

What are the benefits of Mozilla Persona?

  • You can use one easy-to-remember login for all sites that support Persona.
  • You never have to trust a website with your password because they never know it. Also, your password cannot be stolen if one of those websites gets hacked.
  • You can use Persona with as many email addresses as you want. This lets you keep your various online personalities (school, work, home, etc.) separate.
  • Persona doesn't let your email provider track what websites you visit.

How do I create an account?

Persona will automatically walk you through setting up an account the first time you try to log in to a site that supports it.

If you want to set things up beforehand, you can:

  1. Go to login.persona.org, click the Sign in button and a pop-up window will appear.
  2. In the pop-up window, type the email address you want to use when logging in to your favorite websites and click the next button.
  • If you have set up Persona with a Yahoo or Gmail email address, Persona will prompt you to log in to your email account to verify that you really own it. Simply log in as prompted and your Persona account will be created.
  • If you have used another email address to set up Persona, it will ask you to create a password to use with Persona only. Enter the password and click on Done. Then, a verification email will be sent to your email address. Just click on the link to verify your account and your Persona account will be created.

How do I sign in to websites?

Signing in is easy:

  1. Click the Persona Sign in button on the website you want to access and the Persona pop-up window will open.
    Browser ID button
  2. Enter your email address and click next. Persona will sign you in.
Note: If you're already signed in to Persona, you'll only be asked to choose the email address you want to use. You just need to click the sign in button in the pop-up window to sign in.

For more information, see Signing in using Persona.

Help, the Persona pop-up window is blank!

If you click Sign in on a website and the Persona pop-up window opens but it's blank, simply close the window and click the Sign in button again.

If that doesn't work on Firefox for Desktop:

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