How do I switch users?

Question

How does one switch users in Unity? (i.e., in the GUI, not sudo.)

I really want to launch another X session using a different WM, without abandoning the current one.

If like us you switch between users a lot and don't want to type password every time, consider this: https://askubuntu.com/questions/811953/switching-between-two-opened-x-sessions-without-reauthenticating — Stéphane Gourichon, Aug 16 '16 at 06:08

Basharat Sialvi · Answer 1 · 2012-05-21T20:06:02.480

5

Simply click on Second Icon from right (Session Indicator) on Unity panel and Select "Switch User Account".

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edited May 21 '12 at 20:06

answered May 21 '12 at 19:54

Basharat Sialvi

24,046
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Now if only I had that button. – Thanatos May 21 '12 at 19:56
@Thanatos Follow this answer to reinstall it. “Session Menu” and “Me Menu” are missing after upgrade – Basharat Sialvi May 21 '12 at 19:59

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 22 '19 at 22:30

Using Ctrl+Alt+F1 (or others F* works for me; Ubuntu 18.04 && gdm (default) as login manager).

Hypothesis: If I am not wrong, gdm will after login lunch new X11 (or wayland) server instance and put it on some unused terminal (ctrl+alt+F[1,2,3,4,5,6,7]). So you can leave your session (actually whole graphical server) on where it is (probably ctrl+alt+F2) without any touch (for example i3wm by default does not lock its session) and show login screen, which is always on first virtual terminal.

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered May 21 '12 at 19:55

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Go to the top right hand corner of the screen and click on your user name to trigger the drop-down menu of options, then click on Switch User.

That's how I do it on my laptop with 12.04.

answered May 21 '12 at 19:55

Jeff Welling

924

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:32

0

In a terminal:

sudo apt-get install xfswitch-plugin

Or via Software Center:

I saw that on How can I switch users from within XFCE?

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:32

Community

1

answered Aug 07 '12 at 02:20

Frederic

101

How do I switch users?

4 Answers4