How to Find a User s Security Identifier SID in Windows
How to Find a User's Security Identifier (SID) in Windows GA S REGULAR Menu Lifewire Tech for Humans Newsletter! Search Close GO Software & Apps > Windows 152 152 people found this article helpful
A common reason why you might want to find the security identifier (SID) for a user's account in Windows is to determine which key under HKEY_USERS in the Windows Registry to look for user-specific registry data. Matching SIDs to usernames is easy with the wmic command—available from the Command Prompt in most versions of Windows.
wmic useraccount where sid="S-1-5-21-992878714-4041223874-2616370337-1001" get name ...to get a result like this:
Name jonfi
How to Find a User's Security Identifier (SID) in Windows
Find a user's SID with WMIC or in the registry
By Tim Fisher Tim Fisher Senior Vice President & Group General Manager, Tech & Sustainability Emporia State University Tim Fisher has more than 30 years' of professional technology experience. He's been writing about tech for more than two decades and serves as the VP and General Manager of Lifewire. lifewire's editorial guidelines Updated on January 15, 2022 Reviewed by Ryan Perian Reviewed by Ryan Perian Western Governors University Ryan Perian is a certified IT specialist who holds numerous IT certifications and has 12+ years' experience working in the IT industry support and management positions. lifewire's editorial guidelines Tweet Share Email Tweet Share Email Windows The Ultimate Laptop Buying GuideWhat to Know
In Command Prompt, type wmic useraccount get name,sid and press Enter.You can also determine a user's SID by looking through the ProfileImagePath values in each S-1-5-21 prefixed SID listed under:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileListA common reason why you might want to find the security identifier (SID) for a user's account in Windows is to determine which key under HKEY_USERS in the Windows Registry to look for user-specific registry data. Matching SIDs to usernames is easy with the wmic command—available from the Command Prompt in most versions of Windows.
How to Find a User' s SID With WMIC
Follow these easy steps to display a table of usernames and their corresponding SIDs. It'll probably only take a minute, maybe less, to find a user's SID in Windows via WMIC: See How to Find a User's SID in the Registry further down the page for instructions on matching a username to an SID via information in the Windows Registry, an alternative method to using WMIC. The wmic command didn't exist before Windows XP, so you'll have to use the registry method in those older versions of Windows. Open Windows Terminal (Windows 11), or open Command Prompt in older versions of Windows. If you're using a keyboard and mouse in Windows 11/10/8, the fastest way is through the Power User Menu, accessible with the WIN+X shortcut. If you don't see Command Prompt there, type cmd into the search bar in the Start menu, and select Command Prompt when you see it. You don't have to open an elevated Command Prompt for this to work. Some Windows commands require it, but in the WMIC command example below, you can open a regular, non-administrative Command Prompt. Type the following command into Command Prompt exactly as it's shown here, including spaces or lack thereof: wmic useraccount get name,sid ...and then press Enter. If you know the username and would like to grab only that one user's SID, enter this command but replace USER with the username (keep the quotes): wmic useraccount where name="USER" get sid If you get an error that the wmic command isn't recognized, change the working directory to be C:\Windows\System32\wbem\ and try again. You can do that with the cd (change directory) command. You should see a table displayed in Command Prompt. This is a list of each user account in Windows, listed by username, followed by the account's corresponding SID. Now that you're confident a particular user name corresponds to a particular SID, you can make whatever changes you need to in the registry or do whatever else you needed this information for. Lifewire / Emily MendozaFinding the Username Using the SID
If you happen to have a case where you need to find the user name but all you have is the security identifier, you can "reverse" the command like this (just replace this SID with the one in question):wmic useraccount where sid="S-1-5-21-992878714-4041223874-2616370337-1001" get name ...to get a result like this:
Name jonfi