Appcues uses your user ID as the unique identifier for each person in your product. If that ID changes, Appcues treats it as a brand new user — no histories are merged.

What changes when you update user IDs

When Appcues sees a new user ID, it starts a fresh record. For existing users with changed IDs, this means:

• They may see Flows, Checklists, or NPS surveys they've already completed — if they still qualify.
• You can't target them based on past behavior (custom events, Flows they've seen, etc.) tied to the old ID.
• MAU counts may appear doubled during the transition period.
• Goals and Segments may count the same person twice.

Common reasons user IDs change

• The IDs were set incorrectly during installation.
• Your team changed the ID format (e.g., from sequential numbers like 0001 to a hash like a4d93c).
• You're integrating with another tool that uses different user IDs and want to standardize.

How to reduce the impact

There's no way to merge old and new user ID histories. These options help you limit duplicate data or duplicate content exposure — choose based on what matters most to your team.

Option 1: Start fresh (best for low content volume)

If you haven't created much content in Appcues yet and data cleanliness is a priority, create a new Appcues account, move your subscription to it, and reinstall from scratch.

Option 2: Prevent users from seeing content twice (best for high content volume)

If you have a lot of existing content and can accept some inflated historical stats, take one of the following steps:

1. Target existing experiences to users created after the ID change. Add a Created Date property to your installation going forward, then filter existing Flows to only show users with a Created Date after your cutoff.
2. Unpublish existing Flows. This guarantees no one sees the same content twice, but takes those experiences offline entirely.

Still have questions?

Contact support@appcues.com with:

• Your Appcues account ID
• A description of your current and new user ID format
• The approximate date of the change