When an employee leaves, acting quickly on their mailbox protects company data and keeps business running without interruption. Follow these recommendations to handle former employee mailboxes and email in a secure, compliant manner.
1. Preparations before departure
Before the employee's last day, discuss with them how their mailbox and emails will be handled.
Ask the employee to back up any important emails and cloud drive files they need. If the email archiving feature is enabled, emails are backed up automatically.
2. Account data processing
On the employee's last day, disable their mailbox account immediately to prevent unauthorized access. Then choose a data processing method based on your organization's needs.
Retain the account
Retain the account when a successor needs it for a specific reason—for example, when the email address is publicly listed or it is an associated mailbox.
Associated mailbox (recommended): Use the associated mailbox feature to transfer a shared mailbox. Remove the association from the former employee and create a new one for their successor. For more information, see What is an associated mailbox?
Password reset: Reset the shared account password and provide it to the successor. For more information, see How do I reset an employee's account password?
Third-party client security password: Create a separate client password for the employee to use for client logon. Document the password's purpose. When an employee leaves, delete the corresponding record. For more information, see How do employees enable and use third-party client security passwords?
Auto-reply: Set up an auto-reply on the former employee's mailbox to inform senders that the employee has left and to provide the successor's contact information. For more information, see Auto-reply email feature.
Automatic forwarding: Set up email forwarding to automatically redirect emails sent to the former employee to a designated successor. For more information, see How do I set up automatic email forwarding in Alibaba Mail?
Account alias: Delete the old account, transfer emails from the account recycle bin to the new account, then create an alias on the new account using the original email address. For more information, see How do I create an account alias?
Deleting the former employee's third-party client security password and creating a new one immediately ends their client session and logs them out. Administrators can delete client-specific passwords set by employees, which is useful during offboarding to revoke access right away.
For more information, see the following topics:
Administrator: Security password management
Employee: How do employees enable and use third-party client security passwords?
Freeze or delete the account
A frozen account still counts against your RAM user quota but can be restored at any time.
A deleted account does not consume your RAM user quota. After 30 days, the data is permanently deleted and cannot be recovered.
Email transfer
If you use an associated mailbox, no email transfer is needed. For all other mailbox types, use one of the following methods.
Account recycle bin (recommended): By default, Alibaba Mail retains deleted mailbox accounts in the recycle bin for 30 days. During this period, transfer the emails to another account or restore the original account. For more information, see How can an administrator recover email data from a former employee?