How to see all users created on Linux

To see all users in Linux, you can check the contents of the /etc/passwd file — this file stores information about all user accounts.

🧾 Show All Users

cat /etc/passwd

This will show a list of all users in this format:

username:x:UID:GID:comment:home_directory:shell

If you want just the usernames, run:

cut -d: -f1 /etc/passwd

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👥 To Show Only Human Users (not system users)

Most human users have a UID ≥ 1000 (except for root which is UID 0). You can filter like this:

awk -F: '$3 >= 1000 && $3 != 65534 { print $1 }' /etc/passwd

65534 is typically the nobody user.

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🔐 To See Logged-In or Recently Active Users

• Current users logged in:

  who
  

• Show login history:

  last
  

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