1. Confirm the departure time, approving manager, successor and retention requirements.
2. Inventory the user's mailbox, aliases, groups, calendars, WorkDrive files, application roles and external services that use the address for recovery.
3. Arrange approved export, retention or ownership transfer while the account still exists. Check that the recipient can open the transferred material.
4. At the agreed time, disable the appropriate account access and revoke sessions or application credentials through the available administration controls. Record which services have been covered.
5. Remove administrative roles and unnecessary group membership. Configure approved continuity arrangements, such as a departmental address, delegation or a time-limited response.

Zoho's controls can affect account access, incoming mail and outgoing mail differently. Read the confirmation carefully. A block that stops incoming delivery may conflict with a plan to continue receiving enquiries for a successor. Test the intended address externally after applying the change.

When deactivating a Zoho Mail user, an administrator can also choose to block incoming mail, remove group memberships, remove aliases and disable forwarding. Record these choices before confirming the action. Reactivating the user does not automatically restore the removed groups, aliases or forwarding settings. If enquiries must continue, verify the approved successor route after the access change rather than assuming the old arrangement survived.

Before permanent removal, check the export, document ownership, address routing and any required preservation. Record where approved information is held and who may access it. Confirm the effect on licences with the service owner; removing an account is not a substitute for reviewing the subscription.

Stop additional deletion and identify the exact app, owner and item. A mailbox export does not prove that calendars or WorkDrive documents were preserved. Give us the account, service and action timestamps for assistance. Avoid circulating the former employee's password or turning their account into an untracked shared login.

• Delegating a Zoho mailbox to a colleague
• Organising business files in Zoho WorkDrive Team Folders
• Investigating mailbox changes with Zoho Mail audit records
• Planning a staff departure across email and shared files

• Zoho: User Management
• Zoho: Adding Users
• Zoho: Manage Ediscovery
• Zoho user deactivation and reactivation effects