Deleting users

Clerk currently supports deleting users through our backend API(opens in a new tab).

The deleteUser() method takes a single argument: the user ID of the user you want to delete. It can be accessed from the users sub-api of the clerkClient instance.

app/private/route.ts
import { clerkClient } from "@clerk/nextjs";
import { NextResponse } from 'next/server';
 
export async function DELETE(request: Request) {
  const { userId } = await request.body.json();
 
  try {
    await clerkClient.users.deleteUser(userId);
    return NextResponse.json({ message: 'Success' });
  }
  catch (error) {
    console.log(error);
    return NextResponse.json({ error: 'Error deleting user' });
  }
}

pages/api/private.ts
import { clerkClient } from "@clerk/nextjs/server";
import { NextApiRequest, NextApiResponse } from "next";
 
export default async function handler(req: NextApiRequest, res: NextApiResponse) {
  const userId = req.body.userId;
 
  try {
    await clerkClient.users.deleteUser(userId);
    return res.status(200).json({ message: 'Success' });
  }
  catch (error) {
    console.log(error);
    return res.status(500).json({ error: 'Error deleting user' });
  }
}

private.ts
import { clerkClient } from "@clerk/clerk-sdk-node";
 
app.post('/deleteUser', (req, res) => {
  const userId = req.body.userId;
 
  try {
    await clerkClient.users.deleteUser(userId);
    return res.status(200).json({ message: 'Success' });
  }
  catch (error) {
    console.log(error);
    return res.status(500).json({ error: 'Error deleting user' });
  }
});

curl.sh
curl -XDELETE -H 'Authorization: CLERK_SECRET_KEY' 'https://api.clerk.com/v1/users/{user_id}'

Last updated on November 21, 2023