User offboarding (Microsoft 365)

Concept

Steps when someone leaves an organization: find and hand over their files and access, then remove the account. In Microsoft 365, deleted accounts can be restored for 30 days by default, and OneDrive data is kept for a limited time.

Description

Offboarding means handling a user's data and access when they leave. Microsoft Learn describes these points for Microsoft 365:

If only the license is removed and the account is not deleted, an admin can get access to the user's OneDrive files directly. If the account is deleted, it can be restored for 30 days; after that the data is permanently deleted. For OneDrive, the default retention for deleted users is 30 days. After that, the OneDrive moves to the site collection recycle bin, where it is kept for 93 days (this is described on the page about deleting a user). While it sits there, content shared from that OneDrive is not accessible to other people. The retention time can be increased.

To give another person access, an admin can add that person as site collection administrator of the former employee's OneDrive, or create a link to the files and download or move them. When documents with version history are moved or copied this way, only the latest version is moved. SharePoint files do not need to be moved, because they stay with the sites. Files that were synced to the person's computer stay there; an admin cannot wipe them. Deleting the account does not stop the license cost; licenses are reduced separately. Accounts with e-mail forwarding or a converted shared mailbox should not be deleted.

Sources (Microsoft Learn, checked in November 2026): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/add-users/remove-former-employee-step-5 , https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/add-users/delete-a-user

Glossaire

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Maintenu par Mirko Peters (Microsoft MVP) · Dernière mise à jour: 2026-11-11