# My sign-in link did not work

> Sign-in links work once and expire quickly. Almost every failure is one of those two, and both are easy to fix.

Last updated 18 August 2026

Sign-in links work **once** and expire after **30 minutes**. Almost every failure is one of those two. Ask for a fresh one at [https://baybay.xyz/](https://baybay.xyz/) and use it straight away.

![The baybay sign-in screen: a field for the household code, and below it a field to have a sign-in link emailed.](https://baybay.baby/assets/img/docs/gate.png?v=6a84bb3b)
*The sign-in screen. Either way in works — the code does not expire.*

## The two reasons

- **It has been used.** The link signs in one device and is then spent. Opening it again — or on a second phone — will not work, and neither will an email preview that quietly followed it first.
- **It has expired.** After 30 minutes it stops working. A link found in an old email is always dead.

Neither means anything is wrong with your household. Request another one and it works.

## Things that quietly break a link

- **Opening it in a different browser.** Tapping the link in a mail app can open it somewhere other than the browser you normally use, and that is where the session lands. Sign in from the browser you actually use baybay in.
- **Copying the link by hand.** Long links wrap in email and lose a character. Tap it rather than retyping it.
- **Using the oldest email.** If you requested two, only the newest works.

## Once you are in

You stay signed in on that device for 90 days, and every visit restarts the clock — so you should not be doing this often. If you are, [add baybay to your home screen](https://baybay.baby/docs/home-screen.md), which keeps you in one browser and stops the link hunt.

## Still nothing

If a fresh link will not sign you in either, the household code from **Settings** is the other way in and does not expire. Or [write to us](mailto:hello@baybay.baby).

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From [How to use baybay](https://baybay.baby/docs.md). baybay — Feed and sleep tracking for the first year, logged in two taps. Hosted for $7 a month, or self-hosted free on PHP and SQLite with no Docker and no build step. Everything one family logs lives in a single SQLite file they can export or delete.

Canonical: https://baybay.baby/docs/my-sign-in-link-did-not-work