Note: The ENS App and ENS Explorer are both currently on Sepolia testnet. Behaviour and available features may change before mainnet.
What is an ENS profile?
Your ENS profile is everything attached to your name beyond the name itself — a bio, avatar, contact details, social handles, wallet addresses on other chains, plus a few technical fields. The profile lives on the name, not on you as a wallet — so if you transfer the name, the profile goes with it.
In the ENS App, your profile shows at app.ens.dev/<yourname>.eth. Anyone with the URL can read it. The page you edit at app.ens.dev/p/<yourname>.eth/edit writes to the same on-chain data; the read and write views show the same fields from two angles.
What are records?
A record is a single piece of data attached to your name. Each record has a type and a value: an Email record has an email address as its value; a Twitter record has a handle; an Ethereum address record has a 42-character hex address. The protocol stores records on a contract called the resolver; wallets and apps read records when they want to know what your name means.
Records turn a name from "just a label" into something apps can do something with. A wallet sending tokens to yourname.eth reads your Ethereum address record. A profile page rendering your bio reads your Bio record. A site checking your Twitter reads your X record.
What records can I set?
Quite a few. The ENS App's Edit Profile page groups them into panels:
Bio — Short Description, Website.
Contact Information — Email Address, Location, Phone Number, Mailing Address, Timezone.
Social Links — X (Twitter), Telegram, Farcaster, Instagram, Discord, GitHub, LinkedIn, YouTube, Reddit, TikTok, Twitch, Mastodon (12 platforms).
Wallet Addresses — Ethereum (the default), plus around 70 other chains (Bitcoin, Solana, Polygon, Optimism, Arbitrum, Base, and others).
Avatar and Theme — an image, plus a colour for your name pill.
Links — free-form Name + URL pairs for anything that isn't in the social list.
Other — Content Hash (for hosting a decentralised site at your name) and ABI (for smart-contract names).
You don't have to set any of them. Pick what you want; leave the rest empty.
Where do records appear?
Wherever an app or wallet looks for them:
On your public ENS profile in the ENS App, at
app.ens.dev/<yourname>.eth.In ENS Explorer, on the Records tab of the name's page.
In any wallet or app that supports ENS — sending screens reading your address record, profile cards reading your avatar, identity widgets reading your socials.
Who can see them?
Anyone — every record you save is publicly readable, with no permission gate. If you want a private contact method — somewhere the ENS App can reach you about expiry, transfers, and updates without showing the address publicly — use the Email and Telegram fields in notification settings instead; those are private to your wallet.
For the full breakdown of what's public, see What's public on my ENS profile?