On 12/15/25 11:41 AM, home user via users wrote:
On 12/15/25 11:33 AM, home user via users wrote:
As root, I used the gnome settings user tool to delete a user. But I
didn't notice that the cursor was on a different user name (the one
directly above the one that I wanted to delete). The cursor does seem
to be slightly off. It is urgent and important that I recover the
deleted user's home directory. There are not (yet) any back-ups. How
do I do this?
It's Fedora-42 workstation, Gnome. The deleted user's home directory
was in a BTRFS file system, on a 4 TB spinning drive.
This morning, I added a second user to the desktop. Not needed, but
convenient. Someone noted in a different thread that some characters
are hard to distinguish. I made a mistake in the new user login name
and did not notice it until I tried to log in to that account. So I
tried to delete that new user. The cursor was a pixel or 2 off, and/or
it shifted. I did not notice that until too late. My main user account
was accidentally deleted instead.
The GUI to delete a user has a checkbox for whether or not to delete the
user's data. Fortunately, I did not notice it (and therefore did not
select it), and by default the user's data is kept.
Early this afternoon, I saw somewhere on the internet (google search?)
that deleting a user often leave his home directory intact. The AI
answer in the search suggested a way of restoring the deleted user with
his home directory by using live media. I tried it. I had trouble
knowing "who" I was and "where" I was. I had to do "su -" to do
anything. But I then saw that the deleted user's home was still there.
After that, I abandoned what the AI said and the live media session,
rebooted, and logged in as root. I used the file browser to rename the
deleted user's home. I re-created the deleted user. I used "mv" to
move the new user home aside. Another "mv" restored the user's real
home. I used "chmod" to make sure the re-created user owned the
restored home, though in retrospect I wonder if that step was needed.
I have a strong sense that experienced professional systems
administrators would have solved this much more directly, easily, and
quickly with a single command line command. But my steps above did work.
I'm tagging this SOLVED, but I urge anyone else that has this problem to
check with pros for a better, quicker, simpler solution rather than
trying my got-lucky steps.
--
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