How to delete a user & its home folder safely?

I just created a new user & its home folder & need to delete it now & also I cant find my old user's Downloads,Documents,Pictures,etc folder in /home/olduser & also .Xauthority file. Dont know how it deleted. I executed startx command by pressing Alt+Ctrl+F3when new user wasnt able to log in.

I deleted user from Users & Groups but its home folder didnt get deleted. How can I fix this?

• How can I delete new user's home folder safely?

• How can restore my old documents,downloads,folder?

• If not then how can I create brand new /home folder & link with OS?

5

6 Answers

to list all users :

cut -d: -f1 /etc/passwd

To remove user :

sudo userdel username

To remove home directory :

sudo rm -r /home/username

To add a home directory to an existing user :

create a home directory

chown this directory for the user

sudo usermod -d /home/directory user

4

You can use the more advanced deluser command:

sudo deluser --remove-home user

You can also try the the --remove-all-files option. From man deluser:

By default, deluser will remove the user without removing the home
directory, the mail spool or any other files on the system owned by
the user. Removing the home directory and mail spool can be achieved
using the --remove-home option.
The --remove-all-files option removes all files on the system owned by
the user. Note that if you activate both options --remove-home will
have no effect because all files including the home directory and mail
spool are already covered by the --remove-all-files option.

As can be expected, the second option may take a while to complete.

1

Best way is to use the OPTIONS provided by the userdel command.

sudo userdel -rfRZ <username>

This will:

1. Force delete

2. Files in the user's home directory will be removed along with the home directory itself and the user's mail spool. Files located in other file systems will have to be searched for and deleted manually.

3. Apply changes in the CHROOT_DIR directory and use the configuration files from the CHROOT_DIR directory.

4. Remove any SELinux user mapping for the user's login.

Hope this helps!

If you have already deleted the user through the normal userdel <username> and the home directory still exist like i experienced in mine, you just need to run rm -rf /home/<username>

2

sudo userdel -r olduser

deletes users homdir and mail spooler

1. Go to settings and type users.
2. Under user click on change settings and type the root password.
3. You must have another administrator user.
4. Turn off the administrator option for the user you want to delete.
5. Click on Remove User at the bottom of the page

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