The ability to transfer data from one user to another upon account deletion has been a key feature in Workspace. Why was it removed?
The ability to transfer data hasn’t been removed from Workspace, but the workflow has been significantly changed. If you need to delete a user and make sure their data moves to someone else, you have two main routes:
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The Pre-emptive Method (Recommended): Before touching the delete button, head straight to Apps > Google Workspace > Drive and Docs > Transfer ownership to cleanly move their files to a manager. Once that’s done, you can safely delete the empty user account.
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The New Offboarding Flow: In the updated console, you often have to Suspend the user first. When you then click “Delete”, you will see an “Offboard user” workflow. Following these prompts will eventually lead you to the “Delete account” or “Archive account” options where data retention is sorted out.
Thank you for the reply but the new workflow is a horrible user experience. Previously the transfer option moved files, data, calendar events, etc. Now I am forced to complete 3 distinct steps where it was a single step before. I could select what to be transferred in a single screen, now I am forced to bounce around the admin console to complete the work.
The new offboarding procedure gives you no option to transfer data other than a link to instructions that do not match accurately the actual steps needed to be completed. Bad user experience.
I would appreciate restoring the old delete/offboarding process. This new one seems to just complicate things.
This is a serious regression and removing it without warning was the wrong call.
The in-line data transfer step during user deletion wasn’t a convenience feature — it was a guardrail. For years it enforced the correct offboarding order automatically: pick a new owner, then delete. Removing it doesn’t simplify anything; it just shifts the burden onto admins to remember to run a separate transfer first, and silently punishes the ones who don’t with permanent data loss.
A few specific problems:
- No communication. This changed with no release note, no admin console banner, and no entry in the Workspace Updates blog that any of us can find. Admins discovered it by opening the delete dialog mid-offboarding and finding the option gone. That’s not how a destructive-action workflow should change.
- It makes the dangerous path the default. The whole point of putting transfer inside the delete flow was that deletion is irreversible after 20 days. Splitting them means the most common admin task — offboarding a departing employee — now has a built-in opportunity to permanently destroy Drive, Gmail, and Calendar data. You’ve optimized for fewer clicks at the cost of unrecoverable mistakes.
- The Calendar change makes this worse, not better. With secondary calendars now being hard-deleted alongside the owner and no post-deletion transfer possible, removing the inline transfer prompt is exactly backwards. If anything, the deletion flow should be surfacing more transfer warnings right now, not fewer.
What we’re asking for:
- Restore the inline transfer step, or at minimum add a blocking confirmation in the delete flow that explicitly lists what data has not been transferred before allowing deletion to proceed.
- Publish a clear changelog entry explaining what changed, when, and why.
- Document the supported replacement path end to end (Data Transfer tool + Drive + Calendar), since right now admins are reverse-engineering it from forum threads.
Workspace admins manage irreversible operations on other people’s data. Changes to destructive workflows need to be communicated and need to fail safe. This one did neither. Please reconsider.
Hi Brett,
Where is the option to transfer Looker Studio file ownership? It appears this feature was omitted, as it was available in the previous offboarding flow. Currently, there isn’t a tool to handle this. I am afraid to delete users because we don’t know if any Looker Studio reports will be lost.
The transfer tool for Looker Studio only appears at the very final stage, when you actively delete a user account. It is tucked away inside a section called “Data in other apps”.
When you initiate the deletion process for an account, you will step through the new offboarding prompts. Once you get to the data cleanup section, keep an eye out for these exact steps:
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Scroll past the primary Drive and Calendar transfer options down to the Data in other apps section.
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Click Transfer.
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Enter the email address of the team lead or service account who should take over the files.
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Check the box for Looker Studio (some areas of the console may still label this as Data Studio).
Hi Brett,
Thanks for reaching out.
The issue is that the new offboarding flow no longer includes an option to transfer data, so there is no longer a “Data in other apps” section. That was part of the previous offboarding flow. The documentation you shared also appears to refer to the old user offboarding flow.
The new flow only allows us to archive or delete a user, with no option to handle Data Studio, Drive, or Calendar data at the time of user removal. I can see there are separate tools for transferring Calendar and Drive data, but there doesn’t appear to be anything available for Data Studio.
This is the business model google is persuing, is not an option. Is a “i make it difficult so you will end up paying me” flow.
It bothers me because of one single thing: They are not improving the product and profiting at the same time. But they are doing a worse product, leveraging the moat, and trying to profit more.
The new offboarding workflow is not just a bad user experience; it is incredibly confusing and needlessly complex. What used to be a seamless, single-step process to transfer Drive files, calendar events, and other critical data has turned into a disjointed chore that forces admins to bounce around different sections of the console.
Honestly, the convenience and simplicity of the legacy user management features—especially the old single-screen data transfer process—was one of the primary reasons our organization chose Google Workspace over the alternatives in the first place. This update feels like a massive step backward in usability and efficiency.
Please restore the previous offboarding process or consolidate these steps back into a unified, one-click transfer option when deleting an account. Thank you!
I agree with this! They should have updated their documentation/instructions as “Data in other apps” section no longer exists in this new offboarding flow. We just recovered the former employee’s account and yet the data sources haven’t appeared for 2 days. We’re still hoping that these files will be restored within a week.
Even, I tried Google Workspace support to restore those files but they would keep redirecting me to Google Cloud Care which requires a paid subscription. This is just getting ridiculous!
Equally frustrated by this unannounced change. To make matters worse, it seems that there is a lag in the Workspace documentation itself.
During the offboarding flow, there is a link to click titled “How To Transfer Data”
This redirects to a documentation, which claims that Super Admins retain the ability to transfer during the offboarding workflow, which simply isn’t accurate, and reflects the previous UI we’re all chasing after here:
@brettfreer the very documentation you linked reads that Super Admins retain the in-flow transfer capabilities, which is not playing out in practice.
I’m with Brad_Sanford, the new workflow sucks. Please stop changing something that is working well for something that people have to waste minutes of their day trying to figure out your new workflow.
This is killing productivity. If it works, leave it the heck alone.
It is an awful solution for offboarding users, with the work process remaining stable and without data loss.
As superadmins, we want to restore or improve the previous flow without losing data for upsell unneeded options. You are wasting time of admins and make things unstable, unreliable and unclear.
Last, but not least, Looker Studio transfer should be easy and clear.