Delete or remove a user from your organization

This page is for administrators who manage accounts for an organization or team. To delete your personal Google Account, go to Delete your Google Account.  

Choose how your organization or team signed up for Google Workspace:

• Domain verified—You verified ownership of your organization's domain
• Email verified—You verified your business email address

Learn more

When a user leaves your domain-verified organization, you can delete their Google Workspace account. The user loses access to all services and data associated with their account.

Before their account is deleted, the user can transfer personal data they want to take with them. Also, an admin can transfer important company data to another user. Any data that’s not transferred is deleted. Some data is retained for 20 days, during which time you can restore the deleted user.

• Step 1: Transfer important data
• Step 2: Delete one or more users
• Step 3: After deleting the user
• Important: How billing changes
• What data gets deleted
• When not to delete a user
• Deleting Vault users
• Delete your own admin account
• Restore a deleted user

Step 1: Transfer important data

To keep data within your organization, you or the user need to transfer data they own to another user. Super admins can transfer some data during the deletion process. Other admins must transfer data before deleting the user.

Deleting multiple users? Export their data instead with the Data Export tool.

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Step 2: Delete one or more users

1. Sign in with an administrator account to the Google Admin console.

   If you aren’t using an administrator account, you can’t access the Admin console.

2. Go to Menu  Directory > Users.
3. Choose an option:

   Delete one user

   1. In the Users list, point to the user and click More optionsDelete user at the right, as shown below.

      Or if the list is long, type in the search bar at the very top to find the user's account page. Then at the left of their account page, click Delete user. Show me how 

      

   Delete multiple users

   1. Check the box next to each user that you want to delete.
      Tip: If all the users belong to the same organizational unit, select it on the left to find the users more easily.
   2. At the top-right corner, click More optionsDelete selected users.

      

4. Depending on your privileges as an admin, choose an option:
   • Super admins—Next to Data in other apps, choose an option:
     • To not transfer the user's data, select Don't transfer data.
     • To transfer the user's data:
       1. Select Transfer.
       2. In the Search for a user field, enter the name or email address of the user you want to transfer files to.
       3. Under Select data to transfer, check the boxes next to each option you want.

          For Drive and Docs, you can include files that aren't shared with anyone. If you don't select this option, ownership of private files might still be transferred if the files are in a folder that's shared. If the folder isn't shared, ownership of shared files within that folder might be transferred but not the folder, leaving the files unbrowseable. The new owner can find these files with a Drive search: is:unorganized owner:me.

   • Other admins—To confirm that you understand the impact of deleting the account, check the boxes.
5. Click Delete User or Delete Users.

If you chose the option to transfer data, the deleted user's account is suspended until the transfer completes. The account is then deleted and an email is sent to the user who's receiving the transferred data.

Step 3: After deleting a user

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How billing changes

• Flexible billing plan—When you delete a user account, your monthly rate is prorated accordingly. For example, if you add a user on April 1 and delete them on April 15, we charge you for only half a month of service.
• Annual/Fixed-Term billing plan—Deleting an account doesn't reduce the number of licenses you have and doesn't affect your billing. You can assign the deleted user's license to another user, but if you later restore the deleted user, you'll need another license.

What data gets deleted

Data owned solely by the user—that isn't transferred before deleting their account—is permanently deleted. Click below for details. 

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When not to delete a user

You should delete a user's account only if that person is leaving your organization. Don't delete an account to do any of the following:

• Resolve a conflicting account when adding an unmanaged user to your organization. The user loses data and access to Google Workspace services when you delete their account. Instead, learn to resolve a conflicting account.
• Change a username. Create an alias—or nickname—for the user, instead. Learn more at Change a Directory user's name or email address.
• Block a user temporarily from accessing your organization's Google services. You can instead Suspend a user temporarily.
• Save the cost of a license. To keep the user's data and reduce costs, assign an Archived User license to their account, instead. Learn more at Archive former employee accounts.

Deleting Vault users

If your organization uses Google Vault, any retention rules or holds placed on the deleted user's data no longer apply. Data can be purged immediately. It can't be recovered even if you restore the user within 20 days. User data in Vault exports remains available for download until the export package expires. Learn more about deleting Vault users.

Important: You can't transfer data or delete a user who is on litigation hold. To delete the user, an admin with Vault privileges must first lift the hold (can take up to 48 hours to take effect). For details, go to Delete a user with data on hold.

Delete your own admin account

You can’t delete your own administrator account. You need to assign super administrator privileges to another user, and have them delete your account. 

Restore a deleted user

You can restore a deleted account for up to 20 days. Some data is also restored, including their Gmail content and Drive files that weren't transferred, and their primary calendar. For details, go to Restore a recently deleted user.