Sharepoint - when an employee account is terminated, are all their files lost?

Question

Hello,

I would like to get clarification for upper management who made the following statement, 'when an employer terminates employment and we remove their account, all their files also are lost.' Is that a true statement?

Thanks,

Answer 1

Hi @Penny007 ，
Removing a user will not remove their files they created on SharePoint sites. IF files are uploaded they will stay. IF he has local files on his computer that were not uploaded those will go away with the hard disk of the device he had.Eventually, after 30 days, their person site , which contains their OneDrive, that account will be deleted along with the files
When you remove the license, all that user's data is held for 30 days. In this time period, you can access the data, or restore the account if required (in case the user comes back). After 30 days, all the user's data (except for documents stored on SharePoint Online) is permanently deleted from Microsoft 365 and can't be recovered.
If you want to learn how to recover deleted user accounts in Microsoft 365, Azure, you can check out this document：https://learn.microsoft.com/en-US/microsoft-365/troubleshoot/active-directory/restore-deleted-user-accounts

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Answer 2

Hi @Penny007

Please see the deletion process (if the user is deleted versus being disabled).

The OneDrive deletion process

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/retention-and-deletion#the-onedrive-deletion-process

If you are referring to documents they have uploaded/contributed to a SharePoint site, then this doesn't apply.

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If this is helpful please accept answer.

Answer 3

@Haoyan Xue_MSFT . Thank you so much for your help. I will gladly pass this information on.