# How to Delete a Patient

**URL:** <https://community.open-emr.org/t/how-to-delete-a-patient/9202>\
**Category:** Management and Administration\
**Created:** [October 27, 2017, 9:22am UTC](https://community.open-emr.org/t/how-to-delete-a-patient/9202 "2017-10-27T09:22:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jhunyan](https://community.open-emr.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/7c8e57/32.png) [@jhunyan](https://community.open-emr.org/u/jhunyan)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2017, 9:22am UTC](https://community.open-emr.org/t/how-to-delete-a-patient/9202/1 "2017-10-27T09:22:09Z")

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Hi,

How can I delete a patient from Openemr?

Please advise.

Thanks

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**Author:** ![visolveemr](https://community.open-emr.org/user_avatar/community.open-emr.org/visolveemr/32/10974_2.png) [@visolveemr](https://community.open-emr.org/u/visolveemr)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2017, 10:10am UTC](https://community.open-emr.org/t/how-to-delete-a-patient/9202/2 "2017-10-27T10:10:35Z")

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Hi @jhunyan,  
A patient deletion can be done by the following steps,

- Under Administration -\> Globals, goto features tab.
- In this tab check the checkbox named Allow Administrators to Delete Patients, Then click save.
- Now select the patient need to be deleted from Patient/Client -\> Patients then the patient’s demographics will be loaded.
- In top of the demographics there will be a delete option near to the patient name.

Note: This option is only available for Administrators.

Thanks,  
[ViSolve](http://www.visolve.com/hc/openemr)

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**Author:** ![jhunyan](https://community.open-emr.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/7c8e57/32.png) [@jhunyan](https://community.open-emr.org/u/jhunyan)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2017, 10:22am UTC](https://community.open-emr.org/t/how-to-delete-a-patient/9202/3 "2017-10-27T10:22:26Z")

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Hi, I got it.

Thanks

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**Author:** ![CalvinTy](https://community.open-emr.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/5e9695/32.png) [@CalvinTy](https://community.open-emr.org/u/CalvinTy)\
**Post date:** [October 29, 2017, 4:46pm UTC](https://community.open-emr.org/t/how-to-delete-a-patient/9202/4 "2017-10-29T16:46:48Z")

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deleting is easy. Recover is harder. I am still looking for a way to do it efficiently

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**Author:** ![jhunyan](https://community.open-emr.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/7c8e57/32.png) [@jhunyan](https://community.open-emr.org/u/jhunyan)\
**Post date:** [November 4, 2017, 6:48am UTC](https://community.open-emr.org/t/how-to-delete-a-patient/9202/5 "2017-11-04T06:48:29Z")

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Hi,

That is why frequent backup is necessary if you accidentally delete a patient.

More information about backup and restore can be seen in previous forum

> [@Update/restore](https://community.open-emr.org/t/update-restore/8502):
>
> Newbie working on new installation. Having difficulty restoring from built-in tool following the wiki instructions. Any additional documentation of this? Secondly, I would like to update to 5.0. Can I restore the 4.2 restore-tar file on 5.0? Or do I need to restore 4.2? Using Ubuntu 16.04

Good luck!