It may not happen often but there might be situations where Windows locks a user account. For example, maybe one of your users entered the wrong password one too many times, there is a brute force attack, etc. This is a built-in security feature to protect the user account from password guesses and brute force attacks.
Once the account is locked, the user cannot log in even with the correct password. You either have to wait for the account lockout to time out or an administrator should manually unlock the locked user account. The process is pretty simple and straightforward.
In this tutorial, I will show you two methods to unlock a user account in Windows 11 and Windows 10. Let’s get started.
Before You Begin
- You need administrator rights to unlock a locked user account.
- This article assumes you have access to a working administrator account. If you only have one user account and it is locked, you have to wait for the lockout period to timeout, usually 30 minutes.
- The below steps are tested to work in Windows 11 and Windows 10.
Unlock Locked User Account Using User Management Tool
Both on Windows 10 and Windows 11, you can unlock a user account using the Lock User Management tool. Here’s how.
- Open the Run dialog by pressing “Windows key + R”.
- Enter”lusrmgr.msc” in the Run dialog and click “OK“.
- Open the “Users” folder on the sidebar.
- Double-click on the locked user account.
- Under the “General” tab, uncheck the “Account is locked out” checkbox.
- Click the “OK” button.
- Close the “Local Users and Groups” window.
- With that, the user account is unlocked.
Detailed Steps (With Screenshots)
First, we need to open the Local Users and Groups tool. To do that, open the Run dialog by pressing the “Windows key + R“, type “lusrmgr.msc“, and click “OK“. Alternatively, you can search for the same in the Start menu.
In the “lusrmgr.msc” window, select the “Users” folder on the sidebar. On the right panel, find the locked user account and double-click on it to open the “Properties” window.
Here, ensure you are in the “General” tab and uncheck the “Account is locked out” checkbox. Click the “OK” button to save the change. Finally, close the Local Users and Groups tool by clicking the “X” button on the title bar.
With that, the locked user account is unlocked. The user can now sign in with the correct password.
Command to unlock locked user account
If you like to use the command-line approach or want to create a simple script, follow the below steps to unlock the user account using PowerShell (command will also work with Command Prompt).
- Right-click on the Start button on the Taskbar.
- Select the “Terminal (Admin)” option.
- Type “net user” and press Enter.
- Note down the username of the locked user account (first column).
- Execute the “net user “YourUsername” /active:yes” command while replacing “YourUsername” with the actual username of the locked user account.
- Close the Terminal window.
- With that, the user account is unlocked.
Detailed Steps (With Screenshots)
First, right-click on the Start button on your taskbar and click the “Terminal (Admin)” option. You can also search for “Terminal” in the Start menu and select the “Run as administrator” option. This will open the Terminal window with admin rights.
Note: On Windows 10, select “Windows PowerShell (Admin)” option.
In the terminal window, run the following command. It will display a list of all the user account in your computer. Copy or note down the username of the locked user account.
net user
After that, execute the below command while replacing “YourUsername” with the username of the locked user account you got from the above command.
net user "YourUsername" /active:yes
As soon as the command is executed, the account is locked and the user can sign in normally.
Wrapping Up — Unlocking User Account in Windows
As you can see, thanks to the built-in methods, unlocking a locked user account in Windows is a fairly simple task. Keep in mind that you need an active administrator account to manually unlock a user account in Windows. If you don’t have it, you need to wait for the account lockout time to run out. The the lockout is finished, you can sign in normally.
If you have any questions or need help, comment below. I’ll be happy to assist.
