How to delete a user & its home folder safely?

Question

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?

Solution 1

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

Solution 2

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.

Solution 3

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!

Solution 4

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>

Solution 5

sudo userdel -r olduser

deletes users homdir and mail spooler

View more solutions

Comments

[Chuck R]

I was not able to locate that package in Software Center. Though, I do have a couple of additional questions for you: 1) Is your home folder encrypted? 2) If so, were you logged in as your main user when you checked the home folder's contents?

[Deepen]

1) NO 2) YES, I CHECK WITH THAT USER WHEN I LOGGED AND SAW NONE FOLDERS LIKE DOCUMENTS,DOWNLOADS,ETC

[Chuck R]

Very strange indeed. Do you remember the name of a specific file within those folders? You could locate it via find /home -type f -iname '[full filename]'

[Chuck R]

This is a little more complicated than that. The OP said that something happened to his original account folder during this process. As such, I don't advise that he deletes the new user's home just yet until the data has been located (perhaps, somehow, it got moved into the new user -- we don't know).

[Deepen]

First time on Askubuntu I found specific answer! Thanx a lot! :)

[Deepen]

I execute sudo usermod -d /home/username username GOT THIS OUTPUT usermod: no changes

[Deepen]

@nux rebooted & worked perfectly fine! thank you! :)

[FreeSoftwareServers]

Note: This got me into BIG Trouble, as it went into my NFS mount and deleted files created by the same user on other VMs on the NFS file server! Thankfully I stopped it before I lost to much, and extundelete helped a lot as well! (--remove-all-files)

[damadam]

-f option is really dangerous, if you type the wrong directory, say Good bye data :(

[HCM]

@damadam true, and that was why I fully stated the argument. To be safe, it is better omitted and prompted during the removal.