AnyDesk ID and Alias

Table of Contents

Each AnyDesk user is assigned a unique numerical ID within the AnyDesk network, which can be given a more descriptive Alias. Both the ID and Alias serve as the address for specific AnyDesk clients.

Note: Uninstalling AnyDesk will not affect the AnyDesk-ID or configuration files unless specifically requested in the uninstallation menu.

Alias Requirements

An Alias is structured by a name and a namespace: @, such as computer@ad.

The public namespace is “@ad”, which pertains to AnyDesk. All users have access to this namespace. AnyDesk portable (not installed) only has an ID. No Alias can be assigned until AnyDesk is installed or manually registered via the customer portal on my.anydesk.com.

AnyDesk-Alias can currently consist of the following characters:

Numbers: 0-9
Letters: a-z, A-Z
Symbols: minus (-), period (.), and underscore (_)

All other characters are forbidden and regarded as invalid.

Additionally, an Alias can consist of a maximum of 25 characters.

Warning: Aliases can only be set up on AnyDesk clients linked to a paid license.

Furthermore, AnyDesk-Aliases in the public namespace (@ad) are permanently linked to the AnyDesk-ID and cannot be removed or reassigned. Paid license users are able to assign up to 3 Aliases in the public namespace to one AnyDesk-ID.

If you are regularly changing AnyDesk-Aliases or wish to reassign them to a different AnyDesk-ID, please consider using a custom namespace.

Custom Namespaces

Standard, Advanced, and Ultimate license users have the option to purchase their own custom namespace (you@yourcompany). This allows for the ability to change or reassign the Aliases that are registered to this custom namespace an unlimited number of times.

A custom namespace can also be very helpful in securing your devices in combination with our Access Control List.

To purchase a custom namespace, please contact our Sales team or through your my.AnyDesk.com customer portal by clicking the “Upgrade!” button.

Tip: There are two ways to register an Alias in your custom namespace:

Manually via the Client Details page in your customer portal.
Automatically by installing a custom client with the key-value pair:
ad.anynet.register.add_to_namespace=true
and the following Custom Client Generator options:
Automatically register alias*****
Assign to license.

If there are no previous configuration files when installing a custom client with the above options, the device name, and your custom namespace will be automatically registered as the Alias for this client.

*****Furthermore, for custom MSI installer packages, “Automatically register alias” should not be selected when using the above key-value pair.

Backing up and Restoring the AnyDesk-ID and Settings

Whether you want to migrate your AnyDesk-ID to a new device or simply want to backup your AnyDesk-ID and Alias for a rainy day, AnyDesk allows users to backup and restore their configuration files.

To backup your ID and Alias, save the service.conf configuration file in a secure location. This enables you to retrieve your ID and Alias in case of data loss. To secure settings and recent session list as well, backup the entire “Installed” and “Uninstalled” folders respectively.

The directory of the configuration files depends on whether you have installed AnyDesk or run it portable.

For detailed instructions on the directory of configuration files, visit the Backing up and Restoring the AnyDesk-ID and Settings page.

Note:

For Android and iOS, uninstalling the application will automatically remove the configuration files meaning you will lose your AnyDesk-ID/Alias.

On Android, the service.conf can be backed up and restored if your device is rooted for access to the appropriate folders.

It is not possible to backup and restore AnyDesk-IDs and Aliases on iOS devices at this time.

Setting/Changing AnyDesk-Aliases

If the client does not have a pre-existing AnyDesk-Alias, one can be assigned by right-clicking the AnyDesk-ID and selecting “Choose alias…”.

Alternatively, paid license users are able to set or change AnyDesk-Aliases of devices registered to their account through the Clients tab of their my.AnyDesk.com customer portal.

Aliases in the custom namespace such as myalias@company can be changed an unlimited number of times.

On the other hand, each ID can only be linked to a maximum of three Aliases in the public namespace (e.g. myalias@ad). Please note that Aliases in the public namespace are permanently linked to the ID and cannot be removed.

Warning: The AnyDesk-ID and Alias are stored in the service.conf configuration file. If the configuration files get lost for any reason, the ID and Alias will be lost and cannot be reclaimed unless the backups of the configuration files are restored. See Backing up and Restoring the AnyDesk-ID and Settings.

Cloned Operating Systems

If a system has been cloned after AnyDesk has already been started on it and deployed on multiple devices, they all have the same AnyDesk-ID as they have the same configuration files.

To resolve the issue, recreate and redeploy the image without the folders mentioned in the Backing up & Restoring the AnyDesk-ID and Settings page or manually delete the folders on the devices with the duplicate AnyDesk-IDs while AnyDesk is completely closed.

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