When someone leaves, an admin with the Drive and Docs privilege can transfer their Drive files to a new owner in the Admin console. Files move into a transfer folder in the new owner's My Drive. The transfer does not change who has access, and Trash is not transferred, so plan the order of steps.
Eligibility
The recipient must be in your organization, with an active account that is not suspended, archived or deleted, enough storage and Drive turned on. The source must be in your organization, not on a Vault litigation hold and not already deleted. A recently deleted user can be restored first. Transfers to or from external accounts, including personal Google Accounts, are not supported.
What is transferred
- Folders and files from the previous owner's My Drive, placed in a new transfer folder.
- Computers folders from a Drive sync client such as Drive for Desktop.
- Shortcuts to files whose parent folders are not shared with the new owner.
- Files owned by the previous owner but sitting in someone else's My Drive inside a folder shared with the new owner. These change owner and stay where they are.
Not transferred: items in Trash. Unorganized files with no parent folder must be moved into the user's My Drive first. Other owners in a folder hierarchy must be transferred separately. Google Maps files cannot be transferred.
Caveats that matter for security
Transfers do not change who has access to the files. If the departing person shared a file with a personal address, that share survives the transfer. The previous owner can also still edit transferred files unless their account is deleted or permissions change.
So a transfer is not an offboarding by itself. Pair it with removing external shares you do not want and disabling or deleting the account.
Order of operations
- Suspend the account first. Google recommends this to stop the person creating or moving content during the transfer.
- Ask the new owner not to add files during the transfer.
- Run the transfer from Drive and Docs, Transfer ownership.
- Review sharing on high value folders for external members.
- Delete or archive the account only after confirming the transfer finished.
Timing: large transfers take a while, and one running longer than 36 hours fails and must be restarted. The new owner, previous owner and admin each get a confirmation email.
If you delete the user, you can transfer files as part of deletion, but files still in Trash are deleted with the account.
Records
Ownership history remains in version history and Drive log events after the account is gone. Our general checklist for departing staff is at /resources/blog/saas-offboarding-checklist-departing-employee.
Quick check
Does a transfer remove sharing with outside people?
No. Transfers do not change who has access.
What happens to files in Trash?
They are not transferred and are deleted with the account if you delete the user.
Sources
Last reviewed: 19 October 2026.
