Safely Delete a WordPress User

You can usually safely delete a user but you should proceed with cautions and watch the prompts.

We recommend you backup your website first

  • How to: Backup your website with Updraft Plus
  • Locate the User

  • Navigate to the Users > All Users menu and locate the user you wish to delete.
  • Hover over the user's name - a small menu will appear beneath the user's name - click 'Delete'
  • Decide what to do with their content

  • This bit's the important bit: decide what you want to do with their content:
    • Delete the content. Not a good idea if this was your web developer as you may delete all the pages on your website!
    • Assign to another user.
  • Confirm Deletion

  • Confirm the deletion by clicking the Confirm button.
  • What if you accidentally deleted all the content?

    Potentially not a disaster - the content will be in the Bin / Trash. You can navigate to the bin and you should be able to restore most of the content. This can be a little messy though so we advise taking a backup of your database first.

    What of you just want to stop a user logging in and making changes?

    To prevent a user making changes and accessing important parts of your dashboard, you can just edit their account and change their role to Subscriber
    Article published 15th May 2019
    Last modified 12th January 2023

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