settings.md

---
title: General settings
redirect_from:
  - /docs/latest/administration-guide/08-configuration-settings
---

# General settings

This section contains settings for your whole instance, like its URL, the reporting timezone, and toggles for disabling or enabling some of Metabase's optional features.

You can configure these settings from **Settings** > **Admin Settings** > **General**.

## Site name

How you’d like to refer to this instance of Metabase.

## Site URL

The site URL is the web address that people use to access your Metabase instance. Make sure to include `http://` or `https://` to make sure it’s reachable.

### Redirect to HTTPS

By default, Metabase is served over HTTP.

To force all traffic to use HTTPS via redirect, click `http://` (under the **Site URL** section) and select `https://` from the dropdown menu.

For example, say you enable HTTPS redirect for a Metabase instance at the site URL "example.com". When someone enters an address like `example.com/data` in their browser's address bar, they'll get automatically redirected to a secure connection at `https://example.com/data`.

> Note: if you haven't set up HTTPS on your server, Metabase will not let you enable HTTPS redirect. Instead, you'll get a warning saying "It looks like HTTPS is not properly configured."

## Email address for help requests

This email address will be displayed in various messages throughout Metabase when users encounter a scenario where they need assistance from an admin, such as a password reset request.

## Approved domains for notifications

{% include plans-blockquote.html feature="Approved domains for notifications" %}

Allowed email address domain(s) for new [dashboard subscriptions](../dashboards/subscriptions.md) and [alerts](../questions/sharing/alerts.md). 

Adding approved domains allows you to restrict which email addresses people can send alerts and subscriptions to.

To allow all domains, leave the field empty (allowing all domains is the default).

To specify multiple domains, separate each domain with a comma, with no space in between (e.g., "domain1,domain2"). 

You can also set this property using the environment variable [`MB_SUBSCRIPTION_ALLOWED_DOMAINS`](../configuring-metabase/environment-variables.md#mb_subscription_allowed_domains).

> This setting doesn't affect existing subscriptions and alerts.

## Anonymous tracking

This option turns determines whether or not you allow [anonymous data about your usage of Metabase](../installation-and-operation/information-collection.md) to be sent back to us to help us improve the product. [Your database’s data is never tracked or sent](https://www.metabase.com/security).

## Friendly table and field names

By default, Metabase attempts to make field and table names more readable by changing things like `somehorriblename` to `Some Horrible Name`. This does not work well for languages other than English, or for fields that have lots of abbreviations or codes in them. If you'd like to turn this setting off, you can do so from the Admin Panel under **Settings** > **Admin settings** > **General**.

If you re-enable this setting, Metabase will run a [scan](../databases/sync-scan.md#how-database-scans-work) against your database to review your table and column names again.

To manually label field or table names in Metabase, check out the [Data Model](../data-modeling/metadata-editing.md) section in your admin settings. Metadata in the Data Model can be further curated in [models](../data-modeling/models.md).

## Enable nested queries

By default, Metabase allows your users to use a previously saved question as a source for queries. If you have a lot of slow running queries, you may want to switch this option off, as performance problem can occur.

## Enable X-rays

[X-rays](../exploration-and-organization/x-rays.md) are a great way for people to get quick summary stats on your data. If these X-ray queries get too slow or expensive, you can turn them off here.