Whether you create a local account or set up a Microsoft account, Windows automatically creates a new user profile folder with the same name. This folder stores your user data. Even if you change the user account name, the name of the profile folder remains unchanged.
If you don’t like the current user profile folder name or just want to change it for privacy reasons, this guide will help you rename the user profile folder in Windows 11.
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Rename the user profile folder name in Windows 11
To rename your user profile folder name, you need to change the user account name. This requires you to sign in to a different administrator account because you cannot rename a user profile from within the same account.
If you don’t have another administrator account, you can change a local account to an administrator or enable the built-in administrator in Windows 11. Alternatively, you can create a new local account specifically for renaming the folder, change it to administrator, and then switch back to your main account after.
Here’s how you can change a local account into an administrator account:
1. Open Windows Settings with Windows + I.
2. Go to “Accounts” on the left and click on “Other users” on the right.
3. Under Other users, select the account you want to convert, and click on “Change account type“.
4. From the Account type drop-down, select “Administrator”, and click “OK“.
5. Once you have another administrator account, you can use it to rename the user profile folder.
Change the User Profile Folder Name using the Registry Editor
To rename your user profile folder, you need to edit registry entries associated with your user account.
First, you need to find the registry entries associated with your user profile. To do that follow these steps:
1. Press Windows + R to open the Run command, type “cmd”, and press Enter.
2. In the Command Prompt window, type the following command, and press Enter:
wmic useraccount get name,SID
3. From the result, note down the SID for the user account you want to rename the profile folder. For instance, the SID for the user account Admin Raj is S-1-5-21-3087673547-409715449-3012956008-1007.
Now, that you have your account’s SID, you can modify its registry.
1. In the Start menu, search for “Registry Editor”, and select the top result.
2. Copy-paste the following path in the Registry Editor address bar and press Enter:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
3. Under the ProfileList key, find the SID for the account you noted down earlier, and select it.
4. With the SID for the user account you want to rename selected, double-click the “ProfileImagePath” value.
5. Enter the new name for the user profile folder in the Value data box and click “OK“.
6. Then, close the Registry Editor.
Once you modify the Registry Editor, you can change the name of the profile folder in the File Explorer.
1. Open File Explorer (Windows + E) and navigate to the below location:
C:\Users
2. Right-click the profile folder you want to change the name of and select “Rename“.
3. Enter the new name for the user profile folder exactly as you entered it in the Registry Editor and hit Enter.
4. Finally, click “Continue”.
5. Once you’ve renamed the user folder, simply restart your PC and sign back in with your new username.
That’s it.
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