How to Disable Guest / Multi-User Accounts on Android Lollipop

•

April 11, 2015

•

2 min read

Although the introduction of Guest and Multi-User accounts to Android phones is one of the most highlighting features of Android 5.0 Lollipop, but it’s also a trouble for some users. Someone over at reddit wanted to disable multi-user accounts on his kids’ phones to not let them create separate independent user accounts that couldn’t be administered. Legit reason. And there could be quite more reasons for people to not want this feature on their Lollipop running Android phones.

Unfortunately though, there’s no easy way to do this. Up until now, nobody even digged much into it to disable the feature. So our guy from reddit, u/DiabolicallyRandom took the matter into his own hands and found a solution too. It requires root access but it gets the job done. If you’re looking to disable multi-user accounts on your phone, follow the step-by-step guide below:

HOW TO DISABLE GUEST / USER ACCOUNTS ON LOLLIPOP

ROOT ACCESS REQUIRED

Remove all the existing multi-user and guest accounts from the phone.
Install a file manager app that allows root access, we recommend the free ES File Explorer app.
Install a SQLite editor which also allows root access, we know this paid app to be good for this: SQLite Editor ($2.99)
Open ES file explorer, enable “Root Explorer” from tools and then navigate to /system/ folder and open the build.prop file with ES Note Editor.
On the build.prop file, scroll to the bottom and the following line at the end:
```
fw.max_users=1
```
Save the file and close the file manager.
Open the SQLite editor app, navigate to /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/ folder and open the settings.db file.
Open the “Global” table, locate the entry ‘guest_user_enabled’ and change its value to zero.
Once done, save and exit the SQLite editor app.
Reboot your phone.