Remover Users in Linux

The short answer

In Linux, to remove a user account from the system, you can use the userdel command as follows:

$ sudo userdel <username>

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Where:

• <username> is the name of the user account you want to delete.

By default, this command will remove the user from the /etc/passwd file, the /etc/shadow file, the /etc/group file, and from any additional groups.

For example, this command will remove the user named alex:

$ sudo userdel alex

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Removing users and their home directory

To remove a user alongside their home directory, including all the files and subdirectories it contains, you can use the userdel command with the -r flag as follows:

$ sudo userdel -r <username>

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Note that this command will also remove the specified user's mail spool.

Alternatively, you can also use the deluser command with the --remove-all-files flag as follows to achieve the same result:

$ sudo deluser --remove-home <username>

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For example, both of these commands will remove the user named alex including their home directory:

$ sudo userdel -r alex
userdel: john mail spool (/var/mail/john) not found

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$ sudo deluser --remove-home alex
Looking for files to backup/remove ...
Removing files ...
Removing user `alex' ...
Warning: group `alex' has no more members.
Done.


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Easily retrieve this command using Warp’s AI Command Suggestions

If you’re using Warp as your terminal, you can easily retrieve this command using the Warp AI Command Suggestions feature:

Entering remove user with home directory in the AI Command Suggestions will prompt a deluser command that can then quickly be inserted into your shell by doing CMD+ENTER.

Removing all the files owned by a user

To remove all the files and directories owned by a specified user on the system, outside of their home directory, you can use the as follows:

$ sudo deluser --remove-all-files <username>

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For example, this command will remove all the files belonging to a user named alex:

$ sudo deluser --remove-all-files alex

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Removing a user from a secondary group

In addition to their primary groups, users may often be part of other groups referred to as secondary groups.

To remove a user from a secondary group, you can use the deluser command as follows:

$ sudo deluser <username> <group>

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Where:

• <username> is the name of the user.
• <group> is the name of the secondary group.

For example, this command will remove the user named alex from the secondary group named sudo:

$ sudo deluser alex sudo
Removing user `alex' from group `sudo' ...
Done.

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Note that, when executed on the primary group of the user, the userdel command will output the following error:

/usr/sbin/deluser: You may not remove the user from their primary group.

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You can learn more about users and groups by reading our other article on how to create and configure new users in Linux.

Removing a user’s password

To disable the password of a user account, you can remove it using the passwd command with the -d flag (short for --delete) as follows:

$ sudo passwd -d <username>

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This will ultimately allow any other user on the system to log in as that user without using a password.

For example, this command will remove the password of the user named alex:

$ sudo passwd -d alex
passwd: password expiry information changed.

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You can learn more about users and passwords by reading our other article on how to change the password of a user in Linux.

Removing a user from a remote server

To remove a user account from a remote server, you need to first log into the server using the ssh command as follows:

bash 
$ ssh <username>@<server_address>

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Where:

• <username> is the name of the user you want to log in as on the remote server.
• <server_address> is the hostname or IP address of the remote server.

Once logged in, you can use the userdel command to delete the specified user as shown in the previous sections.