Archiving users in Education editions

Starting in March 2025, Google Workspace for Education editions will begin supporting Archived User licenses. Some customers won’t see the ability to archive users until as late as May 2025. New and existing Google Workspace for Education customers will automatically receive these licenses, and can request more if they need them.

Once your institution has been transitioned to the new Education Fundamentals licensing model, you will have the ability to archive a user or multiple users from the users page in the Admin console.

When a user leaves your institution, you can archive that user account to securely retain their data (based on your Vault retention rules) and prevent them from accessing Google Workspace services. Archiving a user account changes their state to archived and assigns them an Archived User license, freeing up their former license.

Note: When your institution is transitioned to the new licensing model, consider archiving all suspended accounts in your domain in order to free up the Education Fundamentals licenses assigned to those users.

What happens to an archived user’s account & data?

If the user has an Archived User license, then the user's data is protected according to Vault retention rules and holds and you can search and export the data. Learn more here.

The user’s data (from core services, such as Gmail and Google Drive, and non-core services, such as Classroom is available to other users in your organization who have a Google Vault license.

• Users’ data stays in the same data region set by the administrator. For details, go to Choose a geographic location for your data.
• Google Drive data loss prevention (DLP) continues to run on users’ data. For details, go to Use Workspace DLP to prevent data loss.

If the user has a license to an add-on subscription, such as Education Plus or Google Voice, the user keeps the license after you archive them. If the user no longer needs the add-on subscription, you can remove the license after archiving the user account. Learn more about removing licenses.

You can archive both active and suspended users. When you archive a user account, their active Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals license becomes available to reassign to another user within 24 hours.

After a user is archived

After you archive a user, they:

• Can’t sign in to their managed Google Account, on any system. This includes Google Workspace services, such as Gmail, Google Calendar, and Drive.
• Don’t appear in the Global Address List. In user directory listings, the user appears with the archived status. Go to View the status of a user account.
• Can be deleted or unarchived, but not suspended in the Admin console.
• Display the archived status in user reports, making it easy to monitor, manage, and eventually delete archived users.
• Can’t receive new email and calendar invitations as they are blocked when sent to the archived user’s account.

How unarchiving works

When you unarchive a user account, they return to their previous status and regain access to all their previous data.

To unarchive a user, you need an available Education Fundamentals or Gmail Only license. If no active license is available, the unarchiving process fails and the user remains archived with their Archived User license.

After you unarchive a user account, you need to manually assign them a license for Google Workspace.

Archive or unarchive an individual user account

To complete these steps, you need the appropriate User management privilege. Without the correct privilege, you won't see all the controls needed to complete these steps.

1. Sign in with an administrator account to the Google Admin console.

   If you aren’t using an administrator account, you can’t access the Admin console.

2. Go to Menu  Directory > Users.
3. In the Users list, find the user. If you need help, go to Find a user account.

To archive a user:

1. Point to the user account and click More options.
2. Select Archive user.
3. Click Done to confirm.

To unarchive a user:

1. Point to the user and click Unarchive user.
2. Click Done to confirm.

Archive or unarchive users in bulk

You can archive or unarchive users in bulk using a CSV file or the Admin SDK APIs.

To archive or unarchive multiple users using a CSV file:

1. Follow the directions in Add or update multiple users from a CSV file.
2. In the downloaded CSV template, in the New Status [Upload Only] column, enter Archived to archive a user or Active to unarchive a user.

To archive or unarchive multiple users using the Admin SDK APIs:

1. Follow the directions in Method: users.update.
2. Set the archived boolean variable to True or False for each user as appropriate.

You can also archive users using tools such as GCDS or GAM.

Education Archived User FAQs

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