Bug 515108 - Plasma Login Manager - Can not hide users
Summary: Plasma Login Manager - Can not hide users
Status: CONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: plasma-login-manager
Classification: Plasma
Component: general (other bugs)
Version First Reported In: unspecified
Platform: Other Linux
: NOR normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Plasma Bugs List
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2026-01-26 13:29 UTC by dgrenningloh
Modified: 2026-01-29 05:03 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

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Description dgrenningloh 2026-01-26 13:29:19 UTC
SUMMARY

Running CachyOS on my main device I successfully moved from SDDM to Plasma-Login-Manager.
Under SDDM I had a user that was hidden and could only be logged into when typing the username, however in the new Plasma Login Manager the user is shown.

Is there any way to hide this user from Plasma Login Manager as well?
Or alternatively to hide all users so you always need to type the username?
Does anybody know how to do this?

I checked the KDE.org page on the Login Manager ( Plasma / Plasma Login Manager · GitLab ) and there it simply says “Plasma Login is configured by users through /etc/plasmalogin.conf“ However, when adding the normal SDDM option there it does not work and I can not find any further documentation regarding the possible option in the conf file.

Chatgpt suggested to add Hidden=true to /var/lib/AccountsService/users/USERNAME , but that also does not seem to do anything. And neither is labeling it as a System account in the same file.

It seems weird that there is no way to hide known users from the login screen, even from a security point of view. Listing all possible users is convenient but hardly secure or private.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

EXPECTED RESULT
To be able to hide individual users or all of them

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Linux/KDE Plasma: CachyOS
KDE Plasma Version: 6.5.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.22.0
Qt Version: 6.10.1
Comment 1 Oliver Beard 2026-01-26 14:48:52 UTC
I believe we can add the option. We can present this in the KCM like in Koko tag editing with config holding a JSON list.
Comment 2 dgrenningloh 2026-01-26 15:14:12 UTC
It would be awesome if you could add this. Though you lost me with "We can present this in the KCM like in Koko tag editing with config holding a JSON list."

How would this look for user?
Comment 3 Oliver Beard 2026-01-26 15:33:48 UTC
It would be able to be changed by the user. We generally don't like hidden config-only options.
Comment 4 dgrenningloh 2026-01-26 16:03:48 UTC
(In reply to Oliver Beard from comment #3)
> It would be able to be changed by the user. We generally don't like hidden
> config-only options.

Thank Oliver, so I assume this means it would just be an option in system settings under login screen?
Comment 5 David Edmundson 2026-01-26 16:10:25 UTC
Lets back up first, what's the situation where you have a user that you don't want displaying?
Comment 6 dgrenningloh 2026-01-26 16:20:38 UTC
(In reply to David Edmundson from comment #5)
> Lets back up first, what's the situation where you have a user that you
> don't want displaying?

Not sure if my personal situation matters a lot to my request, however from the top of my head I can already name some.

1. Security. I am aware that security through obscurity is not real security. But there is no reason to make it easy on anyone trying to login. If they have to guess your username as well as your password all the better. Not displaying the username also means any attacker can not even know if a user logged into the machine.

2. Privacy. Why display the username of a user on there? It is no ones business which user log into a machine or what their username is.

3. Clutter. When many users use the same machine, showing them all becomes unwieldy. 

For my personal case, I do no mind if people see my normal user, however I also use another account with special accesses that I do not need people to see when the login screen shows up. A combination of 1 and 2 in this case.

Besides my personal use case. From the point of view of a business / professional use case. You would want to hide the users for all 3 points. That is why we actually do this on all corporate machines. Displaying the users is simply not acceptable in that setting.
Comment 7 David Edmundson 2026-01-26 22:40:21 UTC
Ok, based on the above a single checkbox to force the textbox mode is the best and easiest solution.
Comment 8 Sergio 2026-01-28 18:25:26 UTC
I also would like to be able to hide a user.

On my systems there is a "fake" user in charge of administering a local texlive. Clearly I would like that not to appear.
Comment 9 Arimil 2026-01-29 05:03:04 UTC
Just ran into this I have beszel running that reports system statistics to another machine, and this beszel user is showing in the login manager despite them not having a password and not having a login shell.

beszel:x:1001:1001::/home/beszel:/usr/bin/nologin

After reading around I thought making them a system user would fix it :

❯ sudo cat /var/lib/AccountsService/users/beszel
[User]
SystemAccount=true

but it does not