Managing data when closing accounts in Google Workspace

When a user leaves or you are closing a Google Workspace account there are a few options for your data:

  • You can delete the account, and all emails and data contained within it.

  • You can request GPLS delete the account and have the Drive and Calendar data migrated to another user.

  • You can backup the email data, then follow either of the steps above.

delete an account, and all emails and data contained within it

Deleting an account and all data within is the easiest option. When you access the admin console, search for the user you want to delete. When you click that user you will see three dots and the word "More" on the bottom of the left column. If you click this the menu will expand and you will see the option to delete the user. When you delete the user all data in the account will be purged, the license for the account will be automatically released and you will begin the 20 day countdown for account recovery.

GPLS can delete the account and have the Drive and Calendar data migrated to another user.

If you request that GPLS delete the account for you (via help desk ticket), you can designate another user for all Drive data, Calendar, and Brand Accounts to be transferred to. The new user will see a new folder in their Drive account containing all the data from the old account once the transfer is finished. They will see a similar new calendar named after the account in their calendar view.

You can backup the email data, then follow either of the steps above.

There is a very easy way to backup an account before closing it via takeout.google.com

Once you navigate to the website while logged into the account to be closed, click "Deselect All". Then scroll through and select any data you want backed up (email, for example). When you are done and proceed you will be given the option to export and download the data.

Email data will be downloaded in a popular mail file type, ".mbox". This file type can be opened in other programs to be viewed, we suggest using Mozilla Thunderbird or "Windows MBOX Viewer".

Thunderbird: Once you install Thunderbird, in order to import the .mbox file you will need to install an add-on called "ImportExportTools NG". After installing the add-on and restarting Thunderbird, navigate to Tools > ImportExportTools > Import MBOX file or right click on "Local Folders" then . From here you can follow prompts to import the email archive and access the data.

Windows MBOX Viewer: After downloading, unzip the files and run "mboxview64.exe". Set a local folder and place your downloaded .mbox files into that folder. See the included "UserGuide.pdf" for more info.