How to Disable Guest Account in Ubuntu

If you have not noticed, at the login screen of Ubuntu, anyone can select the “Guest Session” and login to your computer without password. Of course, the guest won’t be able to access your files and folders. What they will see is the default Ubuntu desktop and they won’t be able to store any file permanently as all saved files are deleted on reboot. The guest session is great if you are borrowing someone your laptop for a quick email check or web browsing. However, if you are the only user of your computer and you hate the “Guest Session” option cluttering up your login screen, here is how you can disable guest account in Ubuntu.

1. Login to your computer with your personal account. Open a terminal and type the following:

sudo nano /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

You should see the following:

2. Move the cursor to a new line at the end and enter the following line:

allow-guest=false

3. Press “Ctrl +o” to save the changes and “Ctrl + x” to exit.

4. Restart Lightdm.

sudo restart lightdm

Alternatively, you can restart the computer. On the next login, the “Guest Session” mode will no longer show up in the login option.

More Configuration

If you want to disable the “remote login” option as well, add the following line to the lightdm.conf file.

greeter-show-remote-login=false

Don’t forget to restart Lightdm

sudo restart lightdm

Restoration

To restore the login screen to the default state, simply undo the changes you have made. That means, remove the line “allow-guest=false” or “greeter-show-remote-login=false” from the lightdm.conf file.

Damien

Damien Oh started writing tech articles since 2007 and has over 10 years of experience in the tech industry. He is proficient in Windows, Linux, Mac, Android and iOS, and worked as a part time WordPress Developer. He is currently the owner and Editor-in-Chief of Make Tech Easier.