Delete a Windows User Account — Keep Their Files or Wipe Them (GUI & Command Line)

There are two separate things when you remove someone from a PC, and confusing them is what causes trouble:

1. The account — the login itself (in the Users database).
2. The profile data — their C:\Users\<name> folder (desktop, documents, app settings).

Deleting the account does not automatically delete the data, and deleting the C:\Users folder by hand leaves a broken account behind. Here’s how to do each cleanly.

Keep their data: delete only the account

net user … /delete removes the account but leaves C:\Users\<name> on disk — so the files survive.

Admin Command Prompt:

net user "Jane" /delete

The login is gone; their folder remains for you to copy, archive, or hand off. (For safety, copy C:\Users\Jane to a backup location before you do anything else — once the SID is gone, permissions on that folder get awkward.)

Removing the account in Settings → Accounts → Other users → Remove pops up “Delete account and data.” If you click that, it removes the data too — so for keep the data, use the net user /delete command above instead.

Delete completely: account and profile

Do this in two parts so you don’t leave an orphan.

Part A — delete the profile data (do this first): The safe, supported way is the User Profiles dialog — it removes the folder and the matching registry entry together:

1. Win + R → sysdm.cpl → Advanced tab → under User Profiles, Settings.
2. Select the person’s profile → Delete → confirm.

Or in admin PowerShell (matches by name):

Get-CimInstance Win32_UserProfile | Where-Object { $_.LocalPath -like "*\Jane" } | Remove-CimInstance

Part B — delete the account:

• Settings: Accounts → Other users → click the account → Remove → Delete account and data. (This covers both parts in one go for local accounts.)
• Command line: net user "Jane" /delete

Don’t just delete the C:\Users folder

Manually deleting C:\Users\Jane in File Explorer leaves an orphaned entry under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList. The symptom: the account logs in to a temporary profile (“You’ve been signed in with a temporary profile”), or shows a leftover/duplicate profile. The User Profiles dialog (above) avoids this because it removes the folder and the registry SID key together.

FAQ

I ran net user /delete — where are their files? Still in C:\Users\Jane. The account is gone but the folder stays. Copy what you need, then delete the profile with the User Profiles dialog (Part A) when you’re ready.

It signs in to a temporary profile now. That’s the orphaned-profile symptom from deleting the folder by hand. Fix it by deleting the leftover profile in sysdm.cpl → User Profiles, or remove the stale SID key under ProfileList, then sign in again to rebuild a clean profile.

Microsoft account vs local account? The same applies — Other users → Remove deletes the local profile on this PC. The person’s Microsoft account itself isn’t touched; you’re only removing it from this machine.

Need to create one instead? See How to create a local user account in Windows.

Sources: Microsoft Learn — net user command, Microsoft — Create and manage local user accounts in Windows