Auto-renew is a setting that tells your registrar to automatically attempt to renew a domain before it expires, using a payment method or account balance on file, instead of requiring you to renew it manually each term.

Mechanically, what it does is straightforward: some number of days before a domain's expiration date, the registrar attempts a renewal charge automatically. If that charge succeeds, the domain's term simply extends and nothing else happens. If it fails, the domain proceeds toward expiration as if auto-renew weren't set, though most registrars will still attempt to notify the account holder before that happens.

NameBright's auto-renew fires 14 days before a domain's expiration date by default. That timing is a single account-wide setting, changed in one place rather than per domain or per category — see Set the Account-Wide Auto-Renewal Timing if you want to adjust it. Turning auto-renew on or off, on the other hand, is something you control per domain, in bulk across a selection of domains through Domain Manager's Advanced view, or for a whole category at once.