When a computer is used by several, it results in multiple Windows accounts. Some are used frequently, others less. At some point, you will need to delete a user profile, especially if they are not used at all or if they take up a lot of space. In this article, I will show you how to delete a user account under Windows 10. We will also explain how to back up profile data and existing files, if any.
What happens when you delete a user account?
All user account data is available in a folder inside C: Users. The name of the folder will be the same as the name of the user. You can check the exact name of the user by running "net user " command on PowerShell or Command Prompt. When you delete a user account, this folder and all that it contains are deleted.
How to make a backup of the user files?
The best way to back up is to copy the folder to an external drive or another partition. Later, you can browse it, keep everything you need and delete the rest. This is what a typical user folder looks like.
You can navigate through each folder and copy what you want. Some potential folders are the desktop, downloads, images, music, etc.
How to delete a user account in Windows 10
You can delete a user account from Windows 10 in two ways:
- Windows account settings
- Command line.
Let us take a look in the details.
1) Delete the user account via the Windows account settings
- Go to Settings> Accounts> Family and other users
- Select the account you want to delete and click Remove button
- It will open a confirmation window and display a warning message, as well as "Delete account and data" or Cancel button.
- Click on Delete account and data button to delete the user.
The warning concerns the deletion of user data. When you delete an account, all user data is deleted, including items such as Desktop, Documents, Photos, Music, and other folders. If you have not backed up, there will be no way to recover these files.
2) Delete the user account using the command line
If you delete multiple user accounts, using the Command Prompt or PowerShell is effective.
Open a Command Prompt or PowerShell with Administrator Privileges
Type the following and press the Enter key:
net user
It will reveal the exact user names on the computer.
Then type:
net user/delete
It will delete the account and all data without any warning. Do not forget to replace
When using the command prompt or PowerShell, be sure not to delete an incorrect account.
I hope that the tutorial was easy to understand and that it helped you not only to delete a user account in Windows 10, but also to perform a backup of the files in this account.