If you delete or suspend a user without managing their Google Calendar events, the events no longer have an organizer that can change, update, or cancel them. The events block other users’ calendars and can block meeting rooms and resources. To avoid these problems, you can cancel, transfer, or release future events and resources before you delete a user.
If you cancel events, the resources are released. You can transfer events or secondary calendars to a new owner and keep or release an event's booked resources.
Starting in early 2026, when a calendar owner is deleted, their secondary calendars—including their events—are also deleted. You also won't be able to make any additional transfers once a calendar owner is deleted.
On this page
- Should I cancel or transfer events or secondary calendars?
- Transfer or release an undeleted user’s resources & events
- Transfer events while deleting a user
- Automatically cancel future events for all deleted users
- Cancel future events for individual users
- Transfer an undeleted user’s secondary calendars
Should I cancel or transfer events or secondary calendars?
- If you don’t need to retain a user’s meetings and events, you can cancel their events. When you cancel events, Calendar doesn’t send notifications so guests don’t get spammed.
- If you want to keep a user’s events and resources, you can transfer events from their primary calendar with at least one guest or resource. Keep the following details in mind when transferring events from a user's primary calendar:
- All private events are canceled.
- Secondary calendars and their events don't transfer.
- If a user is on a litigation hold, their events don't transfer.
- If you're deleting a user and you need to keep their secondary calendars or if others are using them, ensure that you transfer that user's secondary calendars before deleting.
- If a user is suspended (not deleted), their events remain in Calendar, and only super administrators can modify them.
Transfer or release an undeleted user’s resources & events
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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.
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Go to Menu
Apps > Google Workspace > Calendar.
Requires having the Calendar > Settings administrator privilege.
- Click Event and Secondary calendar management
Events transfer and enter the username of the user who you're deleting.
- Choose an option:
- To release the resources and not transfer the events, check the Release resources box
- To transfer the events to another user, check the Transfer events to other user box, enter the username of the new owner
- To release the resources and not transfer the events, check the Release resources box
- Click Done.
The release or transfer starts approximately 10 minutes later and can last 15 minutes. After a transfer, a new secondary calendar with the former user’s events appears in the calendar list of the new owner.
Transfer events while deleting a user
You must be signed in as a super administrator for this task.
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Sign in with a super administrator account to the Google Admin console.
If you aren’t using a super administrator account, you can’t complete these steps.
- Check the box next to the users you want to delete and click More options
- For Data in other apps, select the Transfer option and enter the username of the new owner.
- Check the boxes to choose which data to transfer.
- For Calendar, check the Also release all calendar resources booked in events organized by the user box.
- Click Delete User or Delete Users.
- If necessary, delete the user from your contacts list. For the steps, go to Update contacts.
After the event transfer, a new secondary calendar with the former user’s events appears in the calendar list of the new owner.
Automatically cancel future events for all deleted users
With this option, 21 days after you delete a user, the system automatically cancels their future events. This option does not apply retroactively to previously deleted users.
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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.
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Go to Menu
Requires having the Calendar > Settings administrator privilege.
- Click Event and Secondary calendar management.
- For Events of deleted users, check the Silently cancel future events of deleted users box.
- Click Save.
Cancel future events for individual users
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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.
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Go to Menu
Requires having the Calendar > Settings administrator privilege.
- Click Event and Secondary calendar management
- Enter the user name of the user whose events you're deleting
- Click Done.
The cancellation process starts approximately 10 minutes later and can last up to 15 minutes.
Transfer an undeleted user’s secondary calendars
You can transfer ownership of an undeleted user’s secondary calendars to another user in their organization.
Before you begin: You can only transfer secondary calendars to users in the same organization. Transferring calendars to users outside of your organization isn’t allowed.
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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.
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Go to Menu
Requires having the Calendar > Settings administrator privilege.
- Click Event and Secondary calendar management
- To transfer all secondary calendars from one user to another:
- For From user, enter the name of the user the calendars are being transferred from.
- For To user, enter then name of the user the calendars are being transferred to.
- Click Transfer Secondary Calendars.
After the transfer is confirmed, secondary calendars are transferred one at a time to the recipient user. If there are several calendars to transfer, the process could take a substantial amount of time.
