# Deactivating a user account
{% hint style="danger" %} **You must be an administrator of the Registry to be able to perform these actions.**
{% endhint %}
Deactivating a users account prevents them from being able to log into the Registry. This prevents them from creating new metadata items, participating in Workgroups, and registering metadata. They will still be able to perform actions that users without an account can do such as view published metadata, and search or browse.
### How to deactivate a user account
1\. From your dashboard side panel select 'Administrator Tools'.
2\. From here, select 'Manage Users' in the Registry Administrator tools list.
3\. Find the user's account you are deactivating and select the 'manage' button next to their name and select 'Deactivate this user'.
4\. You will then be prompted to confirm you want to deactivate the user.
Once you deactivate the user, they will no longer be able to log into the registry.
Users accounts can be reactivated in future and they will retain ownership of any metadata that was in their sandbox at the time of account deactivation.
