Every active user session on a PC means your computer's resources are being shared with someone else, which can affect system performance. If someone isn't actively using their session, you can sign that inactive user out of their account to reclaim those system resources.
1. Sign out other users with Task Manager on Windows 11
The Users tab in Task Manager tracks all active user sessions on your computer. You can use it to manage user accounts on Windows, switch between different user accounts, and sign out other user accounts. If you only need to sign out of your own current session on Windows 11, though, the process is much simpler.
You must be signed in as an admin to sign out other user accounts (check whether your user account has admin rights if you're not sure). Keep in mind that when you sign out a user, any unsaved data in that user's session may be lost. So be careful!
To sign out other users with Task Manager:
1. Right-click Start and select Task Manager. Alternatively, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + Esc.
2. In Task Manager, open the Users tab on the left to see how many users are currently signed in. If you don't see it, click the Open Navigation button (three horizontal bars) in the top-left corner.
3. On the Users tab, find the account you want to sign out.
4. Right-click the user account and select Sign off.
5. Click Sign out user. Windows will close all open apps and running processes, then sign the user out.
2. Sign out other users with Command Prompt
On Windows 11 Pro, Edu, and Enterprise editions, you can use the Command Prompt "query sessions" command to check for and sign out active user accounts. This command doesn't work on Windows 11 Home, which limits your options.
To sign out another user with Command Prompt:
1. Press the Win key and type cmd.
2. Right-click Command Prompt and select Run as administrator.
3. In the Command Prompt window, type the following command to query and view all active user sessions:
query session4. The output will list all active user sessions on your computer. Note the ID of the user account you want to sign out. In this case, Tashreef is 1 and Guest21 is 3 in the ID column.
5. Enter the following command to sign out the specified user. Replace 2 below with the ID of the user account you want to sign out:
Logoff 36. Once the command succeeds, Windows will sign out the specified user account.
7. When you're done, type exit and press Enter to close Command Prompt.
3. Sign out other users with Process Explorer
Process Explorer is part of the Windows Sysinternals Tools, a suite of system administration utilities from Microsoft. Although this free software is popular with developers and system administrators, anyone can use Process Explorer to access some of its advanced features. Process Explorer is a powerful tool that maps all currently active processes and DLL files to the accounts running them.
1. Go to the official Process Explorer page from Microsoft and download Process Explorer as a zip file to a location on your desktop.
2. Right-click the ProcessExplorer.zip archive and select Extract All. Choose a location and extract the folder.
3. Open the ProcessExplorer folder, right-click procexp64.exe, and select Run as administrator.
4. In the Process Explorer window, click Users to see all active user sessions.
5. Hover over the user account name and select Logoff.
Process Explorer will sign the selected user account out of your computer. If you get an access denied error, run the procexp64.exe executable as admin and try again.
