When an employee leaves a company, there is more to do than collect their laptop and deactivate their login.
Their company email account may contain important customer conversations, business documents, invoices, contracts, account information, and other valuable company records. If the account is handled incorrectly, your business could lose important information or create unnecessary security risks.
So, what should happen to a company email when an employee leaves?
The answer depends on your email platform, company policies, legal requirements, and the employee’s role. However, there are several important steps every business should consider.
1. Don’t Immediately Delete the Email Account
One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is deleting an employee’s email account immediately after they leave.
Important business information may still be stored in that mailbox.
Before deleting anything, determine whether the company needs to retain emails for:
- Customer records
- Contracts and agreements
- Financial information
- Project history
- Legal or compliance requirements
- Internal communications
- Business continuity
Instead of immediately deleting the account, consider temporarily disabling access while preserving the mailbox and its contents.
2. Disable the Employee’s Access
Once an employee leaves, their ability to access company systems should generally be removed promptly.
This may include:
- Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace
- VPN
- Cloud applications
- CRM systems
- File storage
- Project management platforms
- Company devices
- Administrative accounts
If the employee’s email password remains active, someone could potentially continue accessing company information.
For security reasons, account deactivation should be part of a formal employee offboarding process.
3. Redirect Important Emails
Customers and vendors may continue sending messages to the former employee’s address.
If those messages are important to the business, you may want to redirect them to another employee or department.
For example:
could be redirected to:
However, forwarding should be implemented carefully. Automatically forwarding an entire mailbox to another person’s account may expose sensitive information that the new recipient does not need.
A better approach is often to redirect incoming business inquiries to an appropriate shared mailbox or department.
4. Consider an Automatic Reply
An automatic response can inform people that the employee is no longer with the company and provide an alternative contact.
For example:
Thank you for your email. John Smith is no longer with our company. For assistance, please contact our Customer Support team at support@company.com.
This helps customers and partners understand why they aren’t receiving a response and directs them to the right person.
5. Transfer Ownership of Important Information
Email isn’t the only concern.
Employees often own files, calendars, contacts, documents, cloud storage, and other business resources.
Before closing the account, review whether important information needs to be transferred.
This may include:
- OneDrive or Google Drive files
- Shared documents
- Calendars
- Contacts
- Email records
- CRM information
- Project files
- Shared mailboxes
- Application accounts
A proper offboarding process should identify and transfer business-critical information before the account is closed.
6. Secure the Employee’s Devices
If the employee used a company laptop, phone, or tablet, the device should also be addressed.
Depending on company policy, IT may need to:
- Recover the device
- Change or revoke passwords
- Remove company accounts
- Check for unauthorized software
- Preserve required business data
- Remove access tokens
- Factory reset the device before reassignment
This is particularly important when the employee worked remotely or had access to sensitive company information.
7. Review Email Access and Delegation
Before closing an account, check whether other people have access to the mailbox.
For example, an employee may have previously granted access to:
- Managers
- Assistants
- IT administrators
- Shared mailboxes
- Third-party applications
Reviewing these permissions helps prevent former employees or unauthorized applications from retaining access.
8. Don’t Forget Third-Party Accounts
Employees often use their company email address to create accounts outside the company’s main email system.
These might include:
- Software subscriptions
- Marketing platforms
- SaaS applications
- Social media accounts
- Vendor portals
- Cloud services
- Industry-specific platforms
If an important business account is registered to a former employee’s email address, the company could lose access to it.
As part of offboarding, identify important third-party accounts and transfer ownership or update the account’s administrator and recovery information.
9. Preserve Email When Necessary
Some businesses have legal, regulatory, or contractual obligations to retain certain communications.
Retention requirements vary depending on the industry, jurisdiction, and type of information involved.
For this reason, businesses should establish an email retention policy rather than deciding what to keep only after an employee leaves.
Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace both provide tools and features that can help organizations manage retention, archiving, and administrative access.
10. Create a Formal Email Offboarding Process
The best way to avoid mistakes is to create a standardized process.
When an employee leaves, your checklist might include:
- Disable account access.
- Revoke active sessions and authentication methods.
- Reset or remove necessary credentials.
- Preserve required email and business records.
- Transfer important files and ownership.
- Configure an appropriate auto-reply.
- Redirect business inquiries when appropriate.
- Review mailbox delegation and permissions.
- Recover company devices.
- Review third-party applications.
- Document what was completed.
- Delete or archive the account according to company policy.
Having a documented process makes employee offboarding more consistent and reduces the risk of something being overlooked.
Should You Keep the Former Employee’s Email Address?
There isn’t one universal answer.
Some businesses keep the mailbox temporarily for business continuity. Others convert the address into an alias, redirect it to a shared mailbox, or eventually remove it.
The right approach depends on how important the address is and whether the business expects customers or vendors to continue using it.
For example, if a salesperson leaves, keeping their email address active indefinitely may not be necessary. A temporary transition period followed by a department-level contact address may be more appropriate.
What About Shared Mailboxes?
For roles that receive a high volume of business communications, a shared mailbox can be a better long-term solution.
Instead of customers contacting:
they might contact:
This means the business owns the communication channel rather than an individual employee.
Shared mailboxes can also make employee transitions easier because another employee can take over without needing access to the former employee’s personal mailbox.
The Bottom Line
When an employee leaves, their company email should not simply be deleted.
The business should first secure the account, preserve important information, transfer necessary data, manage incoming messages, and review connected systems and devices.
A well-designed offboarding process protects company information while making the transition easier for customers, employees, and management.
If your business doesn’t currently have a formal employee offboarding process, your email system is a good place to start. A few simple procedures can prevent lost information, unauthorized access, and unnecessary disruption when employees leave.