---
title: "Suspend a user"
slug: "suspend-a-user"
tags: ["Site Administrator", "How-to", "Totara Platform"]
updated: 2025-07-22T10:52:18Z
published: 2025-07-22T11:18:12Z
canonical: "totara.help/suspend-a-user"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://totara.help/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Suspend a user

If you wish to temporarily pause a user's ability to access and participate in your Totara site, then you may wish to suspend them instead of [deleting them](/19/docs/delete-a-user). Before you suspend a user you may wish to set up a [purge type](/19/docs/create-a-purge-type), to ensure that data associated with the account is removed in accordance with your policies or local data laws.

As a Site Administrator (or another role with the appropriate permissions) you can suspend a user's account by following these steps:

1. Go to *Quick-access menu > Users*.
2. Select the padlock icon (![closed_padlock(1)](https://cdn.document360.io/a007399b-031e-436b-999a-528240e16f58/Images/Documentation/closed_padlock(1).png?sv=2026-02-06&spr=https&st=2026-11-06T06%3A45%3A21Z&se=2026-11-06T07%3A45%3A21Z&sr=c&sp=r&sig=nbz%2FQ4r%2BGPSglrGl%2BCxYnZSOKgd3iAozRZyASNu3YAg%3D)) next to the user's name to suspend them.
3. When on the **Manage login** page, scroll down to the **Action** section at the bottom of the page.
4. Click **Suspend user account**.
5. Click **Update**.

You will then be taken back to the list of users, where you can see the users who have been suspended by filtering by **User status** to show **Suspended** users only.

Once you have suspended a user then they will have the **Suspended** user status, and will be counted for any [suspended user purge types](/19/docs/user-data-management) you might run.

Note that any data related to future seminar bookings for the suspended user will be deleted and cannot be recovered.

## Next steps

- [Reactivate a suspended user](/19/docs/reactivate-a-suspended-user)

![Course badge](https://cdn.document360.io/a007399b-031e-436b-999a-528240e16f58/Images/Documentation/course-badge_creating-users-in-totara.svg?sv=2026-02-06&spr=https&st=2026-11-06T06%3A45%3A21Z&se=2026-11-06T07%3A45%3A21Z&sr=c&sp=r&sig=nbz%2FQ4r%2BGPSglrGl%2BCxYnZSOKgd3iAozRZyASNu3YAg%3D)The Totara Academy has a whole course dedicated to [Creating users](https://totara.community/course/view.php?id=533) in Totara. Here you can learn more on how to add users, manage their data, see best practice, and give it a go yourself.

Join the [Totara Community](https://totara.community/) for more resources to help you get the most out of Totara.

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