DROP USER user [, user] ...

The DROP USER statement removes one or more MySQL accounts. To use it, you must have the global CREATE USER privilege or the DELETE privilege for the mysql database. Each account name uses the format described in Section 6.2.3, “Specifying Account Names”. For example:

DROP USER 'jeffrey'@'localhost';

If you specify only the user name part of the account name, a host name part of '%' is used.

DROP USER as present in MySQL 5.0.0 removes only accounts that have no privileges. In MySQL 5.0.2, it was modified to remove account privileges as well. This means that the procedure for removing an account depends on your version of MySQL.

As of MySQL 5.0.2, you can remove an account and its privileges as follows:

DROP USER user;

The statement removes privilege rows for the account from all grant tables.

Before MySQL 5.0.2, DROP USER serves only to remove account rows from the user table for accounts that have no privileges. To remove a MySQL account completely (including all of its privileges), you should use the following procedure, performing these steps in the order shown:

DROP USER does not automatically drop or invalidate databases or objects within them that the old user created. This includes stored programs or views for which the DEFINER attribute names the dropped user. Attempts to access such objects may produce an error if they execute in definer security context. (For information about security context, see Section 18.5, “Access Control for Stored Programs and Views”.)