When you delete a Google Workspace account, the default settings mean a user’s data could be lost forever. That’s why we recommend that you migrate their data to an existing account. Here’s everything you need to know before deleting a Google Workspace user account.
Migrating Data
When we remove a Google Workspace user for you, we have the option to migrate the following to another user:
- Drive and Docs – optionally include files that are not shared with anyone
- Calendar – optionally release all calendar resources booked in events organised by the user
- Looker Studio – optionally include assets that are not shared with anyone
We strongly recommend that each of these options are selected to ensure that you do not lose the user’s files or shared files that were created by/owned by the now-deleted user.
Setting Up a User Alias
After a user account is deleted, you can set up an email alias for the deleted address to forward incoming messages to a new or existing inbox. This ensures that no communications are missed, effectively redirecting the former employee’s email to a current user, maintaining contact continuity with customers and clients.
Can You Migrate Emails to Another User?
This one is a little more complicated, but it is possible. Unfortunately, as a Google Reseller, we are unable to do this for you due to data protection, so if you want to migrate a user’s emails/inbox to another user before deletion, you will need to follow the instructions below:
- Go to the Admin Console.
- In the sidebar, navigate to “Data” -> “Data Import and Export” -> “Data migration (New)”.
- Under the “Gmail” heading on screen, click “Migrate”.
- In Step 1 of the migration tool:
- Enter the source email address (the account you wish to delete).
- Log in to the source email address in another browser or an incognito window so you can see and authorise the email request to transfer.
- Go back to the migration tool and click “Verify Authorisation”.
- In Step 2: specify the user email address you want to migrate the emails to. A dropdown of available email addresses in the Workspace account will autocomplete as you start typing.
- In Step 3:
- Enter the start date you want to move across emails from (we recommend 1st January, 2000 if you want to catch everything).
- You have the following additional message options to tailor the migration:
- Migrate deleted emails
- Migrate spam emails
- Exclude specific labels from migration
- Click “Save”.
- Click the “Start Migration” button to start transferring emails.
- In the migration tool, you’ll now see Step 4 and the status of your migration. If there are a lot of emails to move don’t worry, the migration keeps running in the background even if you navigate away from the page. Once everything is moved, it will show as Complete.
- After the initial migration is complete, we recommend clicking “Export migration report” to see any errors that flagged during the migration and fixing any issues. We then recommend running the migration one more time to catch any new emails that came through while migrating, as well as any emails that errored. To do this, click “Run delta migration”.
- It is now safe to delete the unwanted user account.
Google Workspace Partners
Ballyhoo are a Google Workspace Partner – we can set up, manage and give you support with your Google products. If you’re interested in using Ballyhoo as your Google Reseller, or want more information, call us on 0121 295 5352 or email us at [email protected] to see how we can help.
