How to delete User Account in Windows 10

When a computer is used by many, it results in multiple Windows accounts. Some are used frequently, while some not so much. At some point, you will need to delete a user profile, primarily if they are not used at all or if its taking a lot of space. In this post, I will show you how to delete a User Account in Windows 10. We will also share how to backup existing profile data and files wherever necessary.

What happens when you delete a User Account?

All user accounts data is available in a folder inside C:\Users. The folder name will be the same as the name of the user. You can verify the exact name of the user by executing “net user” command on PowerShell or Command Prompt. When you delete a user account, this folder along with everything inside is deleted.

How to take a backup of User files?

The best way to take a backup is to copy the folder to an external drive or other partition partition. Later you can go through it, and keep whatever is necessary, and delete the rest. Here is how a typical user folder looks.

You can navigate to each folder, and copy whatever you like. Some of the potential folders are Desktop, Downloads, Pictures, Music, etc.

How to delete a User Account in Windows 10

There are two ways by which you can delete a User Account in Windows 10:

1. Windows Account Settings
2. Command line.

Let us take a look at them in details.

1] Delete User Account via Windows Account Settings

1. Go to Settings > Accounts > Family & other users
2. Select the account  you want to delete and click on Remove button
3. It will open a confirmation window and display a warning message, along with “Delete account & data” or Cancel button.
4. Click on the Delete account and data button to remove the user.

The warning is about the deletion of data of the user. When you remove an account, it will delete all the user data, including items like Desktop, Documents, Photos, Music, and other folders. If you haven't backed up, there will be no way to recover those files.

2] Delete User Account using Command line

If you are deleting multiple user accounts, using the  Command Prompt or PowerShell is efficient.

Open Command Prompt or PowerShell with admin privileges

Type the following and press the Enter key:

net user

It will reveal the exact usernames on the computer.

Next, type:

net user  /delete

It will delete the account and all the data without any warning. Remember to replace with the name of the user account.

When using the Command Prompt or PowerShell, be very careful that you do not end up deleting an incorrect account.

I hope the tutorial was easy to understand and helped you not only to delete a user account in Windows 10 but also take a backup of files of that account.