My NCBI saves searches and results and features an option to automatically update and e-mail search results from your saved searches. My NCBI includes additional features for highlighting search terms, storing an e-mail address, filtering search results and setting LinkOut, document delivery service and outside tool preferences.

Note: To use My NCBI, your Web browser must be set to accept cookies and to allow pop-ups from NCBI Web pages.

Section Contents

• Registering for My NCBI
• Signing in and out of My NCBI
• Forgot your My NCBI username or password
• Changing your My NCBI password
• Saving your searches & automatic e-mail updates
• Running a saved search without update limits
• Checking for new citations since you last updated a saved search
• Deleting a search
• Changing a saved search
• Saving results in collections
• Saving results in My Bibliography
• Managing and deleting collections
• Merging collections
• Deleting items in a collection
• User preferences including storing an e-mail address, highlighting search terms, changing the Links menu display & changing the single citation display format
• Changing your filter preferences
• Setting LinkOut preferences
• Setting an outside tool preference
• Setting your document delivery provider preference
• Sharing filters, highlighting, document delivery, and outside tool settings

1. Click Register for an account on the My NCBI Sign In page.
2. Enter a username (3 or more alpha-numeric characters) and a password (6 or more alpha-numeric characters).
3. Choose a security question and answer so you can use it to reset your password if you forget it.
4. Enter the characters displayed as an image in the text box to help us prevent automated programs from registering accounts.
5. You can enter a default email address. This email address will be used for both automatic e-mail updates and the Send to E-mail feature in PubMed.

Note:

• Record your username, password, and answer to the security question for future reference.
• Usernames, passwords and security question answers are case sensitive.
• Only one email address may be associated with each My NCBI account.
• A confirmation message will be sent to the email address to activate automatic email updates.

1. Enter your username and password and click Sign In. Click the Keep me signed in check box to create a permanent cookie so after you sign in, My NCBI will be indefinitely available from your computer without signing in again.
2. Click the Remember my name check box to retain your username on your computer.
3. Click Sign Out from the My NCBI header to sign out.

Note:

• If the Keep me signed in check box is not checked your My NCBI account will be active for your current session only. You will be automatically signed out after you close your browser window.
• You may sign out at any time to sever your access to My NCBI whether you sign in using the session-only option or automatic sign in.
• Click login options for My NCBI partner organizations to log into My NCBI using another organization’s account.

Forgot your My NCBI username or password?

If you forgot your username click I forgot my username on the Sign In page, enter your e-mail address, and then click Send Reminder.

If you forgot your password click I forgot my password on the Sign In page.

1. Enter your username and click Next.
2. Answer the security question you chose when you registered. The answer is case sensitive.
3. After verification, you will be prompted to enter a new password.
4. Make a note of the new password, you will need it to Sign in to My NCBI.
5. Click Finish.

1. Sign in to My NCBI.
2. Under Preferences click Common Preferences
3. Click Password
4. Enter your old password and new password and click Save.

Saving your search & automatic e-mail updates

To save your searches and set up automatic e-mail updates:

1. Sign in to My NCBI.
2. Run or preview your search. You may use History numbers in your search, however, PubMed processes from left to right so order your search statement numbers with this in mind, or use parentheses for nesting.
3. Click the Save Search link next to the search box Go button.
4. You may edit the name of the search. The maximum number of characters for the search name is 100. The name of the saved search will be included in the Subject of the automatic e-mail update messages.
5. Click Save.
6. Fill in the Save Search Settings form if you would like to receive automatic e-mail updates of new search results.
7. Click the set an e-mail address link if you have not already saved one. This address will be used for all e-mail updates for the account.
8. Select the frequency of your updates. E-mailed updates will be sent daily on the scheduled days starting from the appropriate day after the schedule is set.
9. Set the Format to HTML or Text.
10. You may also change the report format, number of items to be sent, or add additional text (up to 200 characters) to the automatic updates.
11. Click Save.
12. To change or create a schedule for a saved search select My Saved Data, click the Saved Searches Manage link, and then click Edit for the saved search.

Note:

• Links to Related Articles cannot be saved in My NCBI.
• Dates and date ranges are not recommended for saved searches.
• Saved searches cannot be edited.
• If an e-mail update bounces back (cannot be delivered) three times, the e-mail address will be changed to invalid.
• Each My NCBI account can only have one e-mail address.
• In the event an update is not sent out on schedule or is incomplete, the next scheduled update will include the omitted items, if any.
• E-mail updates may be affected by e-mail filtering SPAM software. Consider adding nih.gov domain to your e-mail "safe list."
• Click the database searches’ column headings to sort alphabetically by name, last searched date, or schedule.

An initial e-mail message will be sent to confirm e-mail addresses used for My NCBI. Recipients must confirm their e-mail account before My NCBI will automatically send updates.

1. Sign in to My NCBI.
2. Under My Saved Data, click the saved search you want to run.

Note: This will not modify the Last Searched date and time for the saved search.

1. Sign in to My NCBI.
2. Under My Saved Data, click the Saved Searches Manage link.
3. The Last Searched column displays when the last update was generated either automatically or manually. Mouse over the information to display the explicit date.
4. Click the check box next to a search.  To select all your searches click the check box under the database name.
5. Click Show What’s New.
6. To display the new items, click the # new items link. This also updates the saved search with the current date and time.

Note: If you do not click # new items, the search date and time are not updated.

More information about My NCBI updates:

My NCBI uses the following strategy, for searches with untagged terms and searches that do not use Limits, to find new citations:

(Search AND T₁ : T₂ [MHDA]) NOT (Search [TIAB] AND 0001 : T₁ [EDAT])

Where:

• Search = saved search.
• T₁ = the date and time the search was last updated.
• T₂ = today's date and time.
• 0001 = the date that will include all citations.
• [MHDA] = the search tag for the MeSH date. This field reflects the date MeSH terms were added to the citation. (Note: until MeSH terms are added, the MHDA value is the same as the EDAT.)
• [EDAT] = the search tag for the date the citation was added to PubMed.
• [TIAB] = the search tag for words in the Title and Abstract fields.

Note:

• My NCBI saved searches that include search field tags or selection from the Limits page use an abbreviated what's new search to ensure that all citations are retrieved.
• Searches that include the search field tags FAU, IR, 1AU, LASTAU, CN, AU, PS, IP, TA, LA, PG, TI, TIAB, LID, JID, TT or VI use the strategy:  Search AND T₁ : T₂ [EDAT]
• Searches that include search field tags other than the ones listed above, use the strategy:  Search AND T₁ : T₂ [MHDA]

1. Sign in to My NCBI.
2. Under My Saved Data, click the Saved Searches Manage link, and then click the check box for a search to select it.
3. Click Delete Searches.

Changing a saved search

Saved searches cannot be edited; save a new search with your changes and delete the old one.

To change a saved search:

1. Sign in to My NCBI.
2. Under My Saved Data; click the name of the saved search you want to edit.
3. The saved search will run in PubMed without any date limits, and the search will display in the search box.
4. Edit, change or correct the search and click Go to run the revised search.
5. Click the Save Search link next to search box and follow the steps to save the revised search.
6. Delete the old saved search.

Saving results in collections

To save results in a collection:

1. Sign in to My NCBI.
2. Run a PubMed search, on the results page select the items you want to save using the check boxes; if you do not select any items all results up to 500 items will be sent to collections.
3. Select Collections under the Send to menu.
4. On the Save Collection window you may create a new collection or append to an existing collection, enter a collection name.

Managing and deleting collections

1. To display your collections, under My NCBI My Saved Data, click the Collections Manage link.
2. Click the column headings to sort alphabetically by name, last modified date, or by the number of items in each collection.
3. Use the check boxes to select collections to delete and then click Delete PubMed Collections.
4. Click the collection name to display the items in PubMed.
5. Click Edit to view the collection contents, change the name, or delete individual items within a collection.

1. Under My Saved Data click the Collections Manage link.
2. Use the check boxes to select the collections you want to merge.
3. Click Merge PubMed Collections.

1. Under My Saved Data click the collections Manage link.
2. Click Edit for the collection name.
3. Use the check boxes to select items to delete.
4. Click Remove Selected from the Actions menu.

Saving Results in My Bibliography

My Bibliography and Other Citations are available to save your PubMed citations using a search template.

To populate My Bibliography with your papers:

1. Under My Saved Data click My Bibliography.
2. Click add items if your bibliography is empty.
3. Enter your name and other optional search criteria to limit your search if your name is not a unique author name in PubMed, click Go.
4. Review the list of citations and use the check boxes to select your papers, click Add to My Bibliography.
5. To add additional citations since the last time you updated your bibliography click the plus symbol on the My Bibliography Actions bar.
6. Use the Other Citations link under My Saved Data to create an additional bibliography using a saved search form.

To store an e-mail address for the automatic e-mail updates and for the Send to E-mail feature:

1. Sign in to My NCBI
2. Click Preferences on the My NCBI sidebar.
3. Click E-mail address.
4. Click Save.

Note:

• A confirmation e-mail message will be sent to the e-mail address to activate automatic e-mail updates.
• For the Send to E-mail option, you may enter a new address that will not affect your My NCBI updates.

To highlight search terms as well as terms that have been added by PubMed to enhance your search choose a highlight color under Preference Highlighting, and then click Save. Highlighting is only active when you are signed into My NCBI; the default user preference is set to Off.

To change the way links menu on the search results displays in PubMed choose the Plain Links selection under Preferences Links Display, and then click Save.

The default display for single citations is AbstractPlus. For searches that retrieve multiple results and display in the Summary format, click the author names or icons to the left of each citation to display the AbstractPlus format. To change the single citation default display choose a different format the Preferences Single Citation Display, and then click Save.

Note: You can also change the single citation display by adding a URL parameter to the PubMed URL. The parameter is dr= followed by the display name.

For example, to change the default to the Citation display use:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?dr=citation

My NCBI includes a filters feature that groups search results by areas of interest. Filter results with their respective counts for the current search display as tabs, next to the All tab for the total search retrieval. Click on the tab to display the citations grouped by that filter. You can have up to five active filters for each database.

To change your filter selections:

1. Sign in to My NCBI.
2. Click the tool icon to the right of the filter tabs to link to My Filters and display your active filters and icon settings.
3. Click the check boxes to select or deselect filters.
4. To view additional options click:
   • Frequently Requested Filters to display a selective list of popular filters.
   • Browse Filters to browse filters by category. Subject-related filters are under Properties.
   • Search for Filters to search the filter names and descriptions.
5. Your filter selections are in effect only when you are signed in to My NCBI.

Note: When you click on the filter tab a tack symbol will appear in the tab. Click the tack to append the filter to your search.

In PubMed, the icon to the citation provider is included on the AbstractPlus, Abstract and Citation displays. All other links to providers display on the LinkOut page.

To customize your LinkOut preferences:

1. Sign in to My NCBI.
2. Click Search Filters on the My NCBI sidebar.
3. Click PubMed to view your current list of filters..
4. To view or change your LinkOut icons settings click:
   • Browse Filters to browse filters and LinkOut providers by category.
   • Search for Filters to search the filter and LinkOut provider names and descriptions.
   • My Filters to see a list of your current filter and LinkOut provider icon settings.
5. Click the check box next to each selection to add an icon to your PubMed displays.

Note: Your LinkOut preferences are in effect only when you are signed in to My NCBI.

PubMed supports OpenURL-based services either through LinkOut or outside tool. Outside Tool allows institutions to display an icon link back to their institution on the AbstractPlus, Abstract and Citation format for all PubMed citations. The icon link is the base URL provided by the institution and the PMID of the citation. Please send questions about this service to linkout@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.

To add an Outside Tool preference:

1. Sign in to My NCBI.
2. Choose Preferences, and under PubMed Preferences, click Outside Tool.
3. Select an institution from the list.
4. Your outside tool preference is in effect only when you are signed in to My NCBI.

NLM’s Loansome Doc is the default document delivery provider for PubMed’s order documents feature.

To change your document delivery provider:

1. Sign in to My NCBI.
2. Choose Preferences, and under PubMed Preferences, click Document Delivery.
3. Select a service from the list.

Note: Your document delivery preference is in effect only when you are signed in to My NCBI.

My NCBI accounts can be configured to share filter, highlighting, document delivery, and outside tool settings.

To setup a shared account:

1. Sign in to My NCBI.
2. Click Search Filters or Preferences, and under PubMed Preferences, click Highlighting, Document Delivery, or Outside Tool.
3. Click the Institutions – share selections box.
4. Choose the appropriate selections under each My NCBI feature. Only those settings for a feature where the share box is checked will be shared.
5. Create a URL using the following format:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?myncbishare=username

where username is the shared My NCBI account Sign in name.

Use this URL to create a link to PubMed.

More information about My NCBI Shared Accounts:

• Settings activated using a My NCBI shared account URL will timeout after eight hours of inactivity.
• A user accessing PubMed using shared settings is not signed in to My NCBI so the My NCBI box will not display Welcome username.
• If a user signs in to My NCBI the setting for their personal account will take precedent over the shared account settings.