so an employee left your company and wonders how do you remove him from google workspace (g suite)? This is our recommended 10-step process for Google administrators. this guide assumes: 1) you are an account administrator, and 2) your company is managing users/groups directly through the google workspace (g suite) admin console. If your company uses an ldap/sso service with g suite/workspace, please contact us for a more customized checklist for your company.
This guide is grouped into three phases:
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secure the account (steps 1-4)
delegate data (steps 5 and 6)
delete data (steps 7 to 10)
Step #1: Reset your google workspace (g suite) account password
Sign in to the g suite/workspace admin console and change the account password. make a note of the new password. you can now log into the account on behalf of the terminated employee.
Step #2: Erase all associated mobile devices
This step assumes you have mobile device management preconfigured in the g suite/workspace admin console. for company-issued devices, you can wipe the entire device remotely. for personal devices, you can delete company data from your personal device. They will no longer be able to open their google apps with their work account.
Step #3: Change your recovery phone and email address
By default, only administrators can reset passwords, so this step won’t apply to many organizations. however, it is worth checking as a terminated employee could use their recovery phone/email to gain access after the password has been reset by the admin. delete recovery email/phone.
Step #4: Revoke third-party apps
Reset passwords will often break connection with third-party apps, but be sure to manually review and disable any services linked to your google account.
Step #5: Create an automated email response
login as ex-employees and use the “vacation responder” to create an autoresponder message. Please direct all inquiries to the manager of former employees.
Step #6: Delegate account access to an administrator
delegate account access to an administrator through the gmail settings panel.
Step 7: Export all email data
As an administrator, sign in to your employee account and go to google.com/takeout. select the email and google will generate a downloadable file of email data. the mail will be downloaded in .mbox format, inside a zip file. you can then store this file anywhere you like (maybe within your g suite admin account on google drive?). if you need to access this file at a later date you can use email clients like thunderbird and import all mail on a local machine and then do a search. alternatively, you can upload mail back to a google workspace/g suite user account; both options work fine.
Step #8: Suspend account access
Suspending the account will block new emails and calendar invites and disable login access. the account was deleted and emails/historical files can be searched through the google vault service. Many companies keep the user’s account suspended for 6-12 months so they can easily search through old email records. the catch — a “suspended” user still consumes a paid google workspace (g suite) license. If you want to reuse the license for a new hire, you must delete the account completely. If you don’t anticipate the need to make employee email or files searchable through Google Vault, proceed to Step #9 immediately.
Step #9: Transfer remaining data (drive, documents, etc.)
From the admin console, go to apps → google drive. in the drive settings, you will see an option to transfer files. transferring ownership will not affect existing permissions on files/folders.
Step #10: Delete the user account
once the account is deleted, you can reuse the google workspace license for a new hire.
Do you want to be more efficient with this process? you can use tools like gam or bettercloud to automate many of these steps, or at least reduce the number of pages/clicks in the admin console.
additional resources:
>> how to implement compliance rules in google workspace
>> should i work with a google cloud partner?
>> how to enable two-step verification for google workspace
>> google vault video tutorial (5 minutes)
need help?
Looking for help from a Google Cloud Prime Partner? we provide google workspace licenses, data migration, support, training and much more. contact us to find out if hiview is a good fit for your team.