Google Workspace Archive, Suspension, and Delete

Google Workspace recently introduced a feature to Archive a user account instead of deleting them. But you’ve always been able to suspend a user, so what’s the difference?

Archiving Google Workspace Accounts

If you wish to retain the user’s data for historical reference but not pay full-price for its storage, Archive is for you. Archiving a Google Workspace Account functionally disables the account from use and access, but, keeps the container around at generally half the price of the Workspace license paid for a full user. It would be used if the company wants to create an online storage pool of data of their former employees indefinitely.

Suspending Google Workspace Accounts

Workspace has always had the ability to suspend an account. Suspension is generally considered a temporary measure, however, which is why it differs from archive. Suspending account prevents end-user access and rejects all inbound mail for the user. Mail sent to that user is returned undeliverable by an NDR (Non-Delivery Report). You pay full-price on the license until the user is either archived or deleted. You’d suspend a user if there’s a temporary event taking place — like an employee termination or investigative leave — for an eventual disposition (archiving the user, deleting the user, or returning the user to active status.)

Deleting Google Workspace Accounts

Destroying a Google Workspace account effectively suspends the account and prepares to destroy the data. When a user is flagged for deletion, their data can be transferred to another user beforehand. When deleted, the user’s data is inaccessible, and their licenses are made available for reassignment. You have roughly 20 days as an administrator to recover the account before it’s deleted permanently.

What’s Not Deleted

It’s important to note what isn’t deleted under Google Workspace when an account is deleted. Their Shared Drive content is not deleted, as the Owner on their documents is the Share Drive itself; their Shared Calendars are not deleted; documents owned by someone else aren’t deleted.

Offline Storage for Archived User Data

In my practice, I’ve used a technique to create a no-cost, long-term storage strategy.

1. Create a Shared Drive for USER ARCHIVES and share it to the managers/principals of the organization as Content Managers; the administrator should be the Manager.

2. Return a Suspended User to Active status. Rotate its password to something you know and disable 2FA. Allow for a 10-minute window to access the account lowering Google’s security checks.

3. Login to this account in another browser window and access Google Takeout. Identify everything you want to preserve for the user; change the container size from 2GB to 10GB; prepare the extract. You can exclude Google Drive if you’re transferring the files to some other user.

4. Takeout will convert their data to flat files and compress the data into a *.zip file.

5. After the *.zip is downloaded, upload it into a folder named for the user under USER ARCHIVES.

6. Delete the user.

This process creates a permanent archive that doesn’t cost a license. If the data’s necessary, it can be accessed by flat files (CSV, ical, MBOX). You can then convert these formats or reimport the data into PST files or another Google Workspace user.

R