Offboard someone from your business email safely
When someone leaves, lock them out, keep their mail flowing to the right person, and only then suspend or delete their mailbox.
When a colleague leaves, their mailbox still matters. Customers will keep writing to it, and it may hold mail you need. The aim is to cut off their access straight away while making sure nothing sent to the address is lost. Work through these steps in order.
1. Lock them out#
In the console, open the mailbox and use Reset password. That sets a new password and signs the mailbox out everywhere: webmail on their laptop, their phone, any browser where they chose to stay signed in. If you only want to end their sessions for now, Sign out everywhere does that without changing the password.
2. Check what they set up themselves#
People can manage some of their own settings in webmail, so open the mailbox's tabs and look for:
- Forwarding on the Aliases & forwarding tab. If it forwards to a personal address, turn it off.
- Aliases that belong with the job rather than the person, such as
orders@. Note them down so you can move them. - Auto-reply that's no longer accurate.
3. Keep their mail flowing#
Decide who should look after the address, then pick one of these:
| Option | How | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Hand over the mailbox | Give the new password to the colleague taking over; they sign in to webmail with it. | Someone needs the old mail as well as new. |
| Forward new mail | Turn on Forward new mail to one address, and tick Keep a copy in this mailbox. | New mail should reach someone straight away. |
| Auto-reply | Turn on Reply automatically with a message saying who to contact instead. | Letting senders know about the change. |
An auto-reply answers each sender at most once every 4 days, and mailing lists, bulk mail and no-reply senders don't get one. Forwarded mail and auto-replies both count towards the mailbox's sending limit.
4. Suspend when it's no longer needed#
Once you're sure nobody needs to sign in, choose Suspend. A suspended mailbox can't sign in or send, and new mail isn't delivered to it until you reactivate it. That makes it a good holding state when you're not ready to delete, but remember that mail sent to the address in the meantime won't reach anyone.
5. Delete, with a 30-day safety net#
When the address has served its purpose, choose Delete. Mail to the address stops at once, the mailbox's aliases are removed with it, and its messages are removed after 30 days. Save anything you need first, and move any job addresses to a colleague's mailbox as aliases.
- Deleting frees the seat, but it doesn't lower your bill by itself. Open Billing and choose Change plan to remove the seat; the change is prorated.
- You can't reduce your plan below the number of mailboxes in use, so delete the mailbox before changing the plan.
The short version#
- Reset the password (signs them out everywhere).
- Turn off any forwarding to personal addresses.
- Forward new mail or hand the mailbox to a colleague, and add an auto-reply.
- Suspend when no one needs to sign in.
- Delete when you're done, then change your plan to remove the seat.