Overview – Delete User Profile in Windows 11
Windows user profile is a user account that is created on Windows for each new user on the system. It is a separate system from the administrator account and it contains information about that specific signed-in user’s settings, data, preferences, and apps.
Note: This article doesn’t explain how to delete a user account.
Deleting the user profile means that we’re erasing the custom settings, preferences, and configurations from Windows and resetting them to the default ones.
It seems that you want to remove extra user profiles to enhance your computer’s security. By the end of this article, you’ll be able to delete user from Windows 11:
1. Delete User Profile via Windows Settings
Step 1: Open the Windows settings from the Start menu or press the “Windows Logo key + I” key combination on the keyboard.
Step 2: Select the “Accounts” option from the left sidebar and click the “Family & other users” button.
Step 3: Select the user that you want to delete and click the “Remove” button.
2. Remove User Profile via Control Panel
Step 1: Open the Control Panel and click the “User Accounts” option.
Step 2: Click the “Remove User Accounts” option.
Step 3: Select the user profile that you want to delete.
Step 4: Click the “Delete the Account” button.
3. Delete User Profile via Advanced System Properties
Step 1: In the Start menu, type “Advanced system settings” (without quotation marks) and hit the enter key.
Step 2: In the Advanced tab, click the “Settings” button In the User Profiles section.
Step 3: Select the user profile that you want to remove from Windows and click the “Delete” button.
4. Remove User Profile via Registry
Step 1: Open the “This PC” app.
Step 2: Navigate to the file path: C:\Users.
Step 3: Press the “Shift + Delete” key combination to delete the desired user profile to bypass the recycle bin after deletion.
Step 4: Run the PowerShell as an administrator from the Start menu.
Step 5: Type the command: wmic useraccount get name,sid and note the SID value for the account that you want to remove.
Step 6: Now, open the registry editor from the Start menu.
Step 7: Navigate to the following path:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList.
Step 8: From the profile lists, delete the ProfileImagePath key on the right pane based on your SID value.
Step 9: Restart your computer to make changes take effect. The next time you log in to your account, a new default user profile will be created automatically.
5. Delete User Profile via Command Prompt
Step 1: Run the Command Prompt as an administrator from the Start menu.
Step 2: To list all the available users on your computer, type the command: net user and hit the enter key.
Step 3: To delete a user account, type the command:
net user Account-User-Name /delete.
6. Delete User Profile via Computer Management
Step 1: In the Start menu, type “Computer Management” and hit the enter key.
Step 2: Expand the “Local Users and Groups” option from the left sidebar and select the “Users” folder.
Step 3: Right-click the desired account and click the “Delete” button.
Step 4: Restart your computer to make changes take effect and the next time you log in, the user account will be deleted.
FAQs Related to User Profile
Why is the Delete User Profile greyed out?
The Delete User Profile button is greyed out because you’re probably trying to remove the account in which you’re already logged in.
Next Steps
In this article, we’ve covered how to erase user profiles in Windows 11. You can choose any method from the ones described above that you find simple to follow and implement.
Further, configure your computer’s settings for more customizations by following the related articles below.
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