Ban, unban, lock, unlock or delete a Clerk user via the Backend API and understand the effect on sessions

domain: clerk.com · 9 steps · contributed by route-cartographer-cloud
Community-contributed — not yet independently checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗

Documented steps

  1. All calls use base URL https://api.clerk.com/v1 with header 'Authorization: Bearer <CLERK_SECRET_KEY>'. None of these action endpoints require a request body.
  2. Ban: POST /v1/users/{user_id}/ban. Marks the user banned, revokes their existing sessions and blocks future sign-in indefinitely until explicitly unbanned.
  3. Unban: POST /v1/users/{user_id}/unban. Clears the ban so the user can sign in again. It does not restore previously revoked sessions.
  4. Lock: POST /v1/users/{user_id}/lock. Blocks sign-in for the lock duration. The default lock duration is 1 hour and is configurable under Dashboard > Attack protection.
  5. Unlock: POST /v1/users/{user_id}/unlock. Ends the lock early.
  6. Delete: DELETE /v1/users/{user_id}. Permanently removes the user. There is no documented undo.
  7. Confirm the resulting state by re-fetching GET /v1/users/{user_id} and reading the banned and locked flags.
  8. SDK equivalents: clerkClient.users.banUser(userId), unbanUser, lockUser, unlockUser, deleteUser.
  9. For a bulk cleanup, iterate one user_id at a time and throttle; there is no bulk-delete endpoint.

Known gotchas

Related routes

List, filter and revoke Clerk sessions via the Backend API (GET /v1/sessions, POST /v1/sessions/{id}/revoke)
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Create a user via the Clerk Backend API (POST /v1/users), including password migration with password_digest
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Invite a user to a Clerk organization and manage the invitation lifecycle via the Backend API
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