| title | How to manage user accounts in Azure API Management |
|---|---|
| description | Learn how to create or invite users and manage developer accounts in Azure API Management. View other resources to use after creating a developer account. |
| services | api-management |
| author | dlepow |
| ms.service | azure-api-management |
| ms.topic | how-to |
| ms.date | 01/30/2026 |
| ms.author | danlep |
| ms.custom | sfi-image-nochange |
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In API Management, developers are the users of the APIs that you expose using API Management. This guide shows how to create and invite developers to use the APIs and products that you make available to them with your API Management instance. For information on managing user accounts programmatically, see the User entity documentation in the API Management REST API reference.
- Complete tasks in this article: Create an Azure API Management instance.
- If you created your instance in a v2 tier, enable the developer portal. For more information, see Tutorial: Access and customize the developer portal.
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To add a new user, follow these steps:
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In the left menu, under Developer portal, select Users.
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Select + Add.
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Enter appropriate information for the user.
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Select Add.
:::image type="content" source="media/api-management-howto-create-or-invite-developers/api-management-create-developer.png" alt-text="Screenshot of adding a user in the portal." lightbox="media/api-management-howto-create-or-invite-developers/api-management-create-developer.png":::
By default, newly created developer accounts are Active, and associated with the Developers group. Developer accounts that are in an Active state can be used to access the developer portal and all of the APIs for which they have subscriptions. To associate the newly created developer with other groups, see How to associate groups with developers.
To invite a developer, follow these steps:
- In the left menu, under Developer portal, select Users.
- Select + Invite.
- Enter appropriate information for the user, including the email address.
- Select Send invitation.
When you invite a developer, by default an email is sent to the developer. This email is generated using a template and is customizable. For more information, see Configure email templates.
The developer can accept the invitation by following the instructions in the email. After the invitation is accepted, the account becomes Active.
The invitation link is active for two days.
To deactivate a developer account in the Active state, select Block. To reactivate a blocked developer account, select Activate. A blocked developer account can't access the developer portal or call any APIs. To delete a user account, select Delete.
To block a user, follow these steps:
- In the left menu, under Developer portal, select Users.
- Select the user that you want to block.
- In the top bar, select Block.
When you create a developer account or a developer is invited, a password is set. You can send an email to a user to reset the password:
- In the left menu, under Developer portal, select Users.
- Select the user whose password you want to reset.
- In the top bar, select Reset password.
- To send a password reset email, select Yes.
Like the invitation email, this email is generated using a template and is customizable.
The developer can reset their password by following the instructions in the email.
To programmatically work with user accounts, see the User entity documentation in the API Management REST API reference. To reset a user account password to a specific value, you can use the Update a user operation and specify the desired password.
After you create a developer account, you can associate it with roles and subscribe it to products and APIs. For more information, see How to create and use groups.