Archived users: keep the data, stop paying full price

When someone leaves, archive their account instead of deleting it

Closing a leaver’s account is easy to get wrong in Google Workspace. Delete it too soon and you can lose years of email, documents and client history. Leave it active “just in case” and you keep paying full price for a licence nobody uses, while an unused account sits open to attack.

What is an archived user?

Archiving locks a former employee’s account. They can no longer sign in to Gmail, Calendar, Drive or any other Workspace app, but everything in the account stays safe and you can get it back at any time.

When you archive someone, the account moves to a low-cost Archived User licence. Their full Workspace licence is freed up, usually within 24 hours, so you can give it to someone else.

What happens to the account

Once a user is archived:

• They can’t sign in to their work Google account anywhere.
• They’re removed from the company directory and the shared address book.
• New emails and calendar invitations sent to them are blocked.
• Colleagues with a Google Vault licence can still search their data, and any Vault retention rules and legal holds still apply.
• You can unarchive them later, with their access and data restored, or delete them for good once you’re sure you don’t need the data.

Archive, delete or suspend?

When someone leaves, you have three options:

• Delete. Cheapest, but risky. After a short recovery window the account and all its data are gone for good. If a client query, an invoice or a contract was in that mailbox, you’ve lost it.
• Suspend. Keeps the data, but you keep paying for a full Workspace licence. Fine for a few weeks, expensive for longer.
• Archive. Keeps the data, blocks access and swaps the full licence for a much cheaper one. You free up the licence for a new hire and stop paying full price to store a leaver’s history.

For most people who leave, archiving is the right choice. You keep the knowledge in their mailbox, meet your record-keeping obligations, close a way in for attackers and lower your monthly bill.

Archived data still counts toward your business’s pooled storage. Archiving lowers your licence costs, not your storage use, so keep an eye on it if you archive a lot of accounts over time.

Add archiving to your leaver checklist

Decide how you handle leavers before someone leaves. A short checklist that you follow every time works best, and archiving belongs on it.

We can set this up for you: the right licences, archiving and how long to keep data, so nothing important gets lost when people move on. You deal with a local team, get support in English or Afrikaans, and receive a single invoice for everything.

Want help with your leaver checklist?

Tell us how you handle leavers today and we’ll help you write a checklist that works for your business.