As the administrator or co-admin, you may need to delete a managed user in Box if they have left the company or no longer need access to your content. For more information about terminating employees, see Best Practices for Terminating Employees.
Content transfer
- When you delete a managed user, if they own any content in Box, you also choose whether to transfer ownership of that content to another Box managed user or to delete that content.
However, if you delete a user that only has workflows, then the workflows are transferred to you. - Files owned by the user are inaccessible while they are being transferred. This also means that during the move, any shared content owned by the user is inaccessible to all collaborators.
- Existing collaborations at the individual file-level are not transferred during the process. All existing collaborations at the folder-level are not affected.
- The process of transferring content can take some time to complete, depending on the amount of content your user owns. The more content they own, the longer it takes to complete. If after you start the process there is no error, but some of the content does not immediately display in the new location, please wait up to a day before you contact support. If the process does not complete, we suggest first trying to transfer some of the largest folders individually. To do this, follow these steps. If you continue to get an error, file a support request.
- Box does not perform transfers as one single action. Instead, Box chunks a transfer into smaller pieces and then schedules each piece of work separately. As a result, portions of the folder tree display gradually at the destination, until the entire transfer completes. If a deleted user has a large amount of content to transfer, we recommend performing the transfer after business hours.
This does not affect either existing collaborations (at the folder-level) or shared links, so users do not lose access to the content after the transfer completes.
If your enterprise has Governance enabled with active or retired retention policies, you cannot delete a user without transferring their content.
Admin and co-admin permissions
The scope of your actions depends on permissions you have as an admin or co-admin. The table below explores different scenarios and outcomes.
Role |
Permissions |
Delete user and content |
Delete user and transfer content | Delete user who doesn't own any content | |||
Manage users | Edit users' content | View users' content | Content permission | ||||
Admin | n/a | n/a | n/a | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
Co-admin | ✅ | ✅ |
✅ (only to self) |
✅ | |||
❌ | ❌ | ❌ | |||||
✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |||
✅ | ✅ |
✅ (only to self) |
✅ | ||||
✅ | Editor or higher collaboration role to folders owned by user being deleted |
✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |||
✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
✅ (only to self) |
✅ | |||
✅ | ✅ |
✅ (only to self) |
✅ | ||||
✅ | Editor or higher collaboration role to folders owned by user being deleted | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |||
Group admin |
✅ |
n/a | n/a | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | |
✅ | n/a | n/a | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Deleting a Managed User
Procedure
To delete a managed user:
- Go to Admin Console > Users and Groups .
- Select the Managed Users tab.
- Click the user name.
- Click Delete User .
- If the user owns content in Box:
- Enter the name or email address of another managed user in your enterprise that the deleted user's content will be transferred to. Note that content left in the user's trash will also be transferred to the next user.
- Click Continue .
- If the user owns any Relay workflows:
- Select:
- Transfer content and workflows to another user , and then enter the email addresses of one or more existing managed users.
- Delete workflows .
- Click Continue .
- Select:
- Click Delete User .
When the transfer completes, the deleted user's content displays in the recipient's root level under a folder titled [Deleted User's Email] - [Deleted User's Name]'s Files and Folders .
- In step 3, click the Delete this user link.
- In step 7, click Delete .
Outcomes
Deleting a managed user has the following outcomes:
- An inactive managed user's Box account continues to be a paid seat license.
- Deleting a user's account does not affect subscription costs. For more information on adjusting the number of purchased licenses, please review this article .
- Once deleted from Box, the person's name is removed and replaced with Prior Collaborator or Anonymous User across the user interface. This includes:
- Uploader in File Properties
- Comments for File Activity
- Access Stats under File Details
- Tasks created by the deleted user are no longer displayed in the File Activity pane.
- User Activity for deleted user accounts remains reportable via the Admin Console report, under Reports
If you have any questions, submit a support case to our Product Support Team.