Excel VBA Get Username - Windows Current User Name

VBA Username in Excel, Outlook, Word etc.,

Using Excel VBA you can get username who is currently logged in & active, get author name who edited the Excel workbook, Ms Office Username, Network userid etc., There are different commands for each of these different scenarios. So, which one are you looking for? - Windows active user, Excel user name, Network user or Workbook author. Choose from this list as per your needs:

Purpose	VBA Command
1. Get MsOffice/Excel username	Application.username
2. Windows Active Logged in Username	Environ(“Username”)
3. Windows API	apiGetUserName
4. Network Username	WScript.Network
5. VBA Username from Windows Registry	CreateObject(“wscript.shell”). RegRead(“HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ Office\Common\UserInfo\UserName”)
6. Get the Author name or Username who edited an Excel workbook	ThisWorkbook.BuiltinDocumentProperties(“Author”)

Well that's piece of cake if you know bit of VBA already. But, What if I say there are more ways!!! Would You be interested in knowing them as well? Lets find out. Also Read: How to Password Protect Office Excel, PPT and Word Document?

Different Method to get Windows UserName with VBA

Let’s see the easiest one first.

System Environment Variables - Windows login user
Application.username - MS Office user name
Windows API ‘apiGetUserName’ Function
Network UserName
Username from Windows Registry key

In some cases, if the easiest one did not work out, follow the next possible method.

1. Insert Windows Username in Excel Cell

There is no built in function to get username to a worksheet cell. This has to be done by defining a user defined function. To do this, press Alt+ F11, go to VB editor, insert a new module & enter this code.

Function GetUserName() As String
    GetUserName = Environ$("username") 
    'or
    'GetUserName = Application.UserName
End Function

Then open the worksheet, then insert this formula "=GetUserName()" and press "Enter" key. Now, the cell will execute the function and display the Windows logged in username in the cell.

2. VBA Application.Username - Excel User

Excel Username Settings in Menu — Excel Application Username Settings in Menu

Well this is the easiest of all the method and does not require any references to be added to any library or DLL. You can manually change this user name from this menu option: File - Options - General as in this image. Just copy-paste this code to Excel or Word VB Editor and run it.

Sub GetUserName_AppUser()
    Dim strUserName As String
    
    'Use the Application Object to get the Username
    strUserName = Application.UserName
    MsgBox "Current Logged In UserName is:" & strUserName
End Sub

This Excel macro code will display the current Windows username, who is also executing this Excel or Word App.

3. Excel VBA Get Username from System Environment Variables

Open Command prompt and type ‘Set’ and press Enter. This command will display list of all the Environment variables and values stored in it. In this list, we have an Environment variable “USERNAME” and it will have the active logged in username for that session. We can write macro to read this Environment Variable and get the user id.

Sub GetUserName_Environ()
    Dim idx As Integer
    'To Directly the value of a Environment Variable with its Name
    MsgBox VBA.Interaction.Environ$("UserName")
    
    'To get all the List of Environment Variables
    For idx = 1 To 255
        strEnvironVal = VBA.Interaction.Environ$(idx)
        ThisWorkbook.Sheets(1).Cells(idx, 1) = strEnvironVal
    Next idx
    
End Sub

Note: This VBA macro can also be used to read all the Environment variables from system for that login session.

4. Using Windows API ‘apiGetUserName’ Function

Microsoft provides many other variants of this function. So, you can choose to use this function or any other available APIs based on your need. To use this API, declare the function before calling the function.

'For 32-bit office installation
'Private Declare Function apiGetUserName Lib "advapi32.dll" Alias _
'    "GetUserNameA" (ByVal lpBuffer As String, nSize As Long) As Long

'For 64-bit office installation
Private Declare PtrSafe Function apiGetUserName Lib "advapi32.dll" _
    Alias "GetUserNameA" (ByVal lpBuffer As String, nSize As LongPtr) As Long

Sub Get_UserName_WINAPI()
    'Declare Variables
    Dim Returned_Val_Length As Variant
    Dim API_Return_Status As Variant
    Dim Returned_UserName As String
    
    'Define Space for Variables
    Returned_UserName = String$(254, 0)
    Returned_Val_Length = 255
    
    'Call the API and get the User Details
    API_Return_Status = apiGetUserName(Returned_UserName, Returned_Val_Length)
    
    'Remove unwanted details from Return value and get only Username
    Returned_UserName = Mid(Trim(Returned_UserName), 1, Returned_Val_Length - 1)
End Sub

5. Network UserName in Excel VBA

The WScript Object is used here to get the Network Username for the current logged in user. Create an instance for the object Wscript.Network and use it to fetch the User and Computer Details as explained below.

Sub GetUserName_Environ()
    Dim ObjWshNw As Object
    Set ObjWshNw = CreateObject("WScript.Network")
    
    MsgBox ObjWshNw.UserName
    MsgBox ObjWshNw.ComputerName
    MsgBox ObjWshNw.UserDomain
End Sub

All these combination of codes, fetch current Windows user name details to Excel.

6. Excel VBA Username from Windows Registry

Windows system stores numerous detail in its registry. Details like Operating system features, parameters, installed software, users, etc., This code fetches the user info from registry within Excel.

Function getUsernameWindows() As String
    getUsernameWindows = CreateObject("wscript.shell").RegRead("HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common\UserInfo\UserName")
End Function

We will be in need of these code tricks when, We share any Office document with other users and we need to collect the user details whoever is accessing it or restrict users from using this document based on their login id. Read Also:

Get list of Tasks running in System from Task Manager.
Fetch Details from Websites to Excel Through VBA.

External References