It’s unfortunate but in most businesses, people come and go constantly. Last week I explained how to disable/suspend a Google Apps user account which is important when a person exits the business. Today I’ll explain how you as the Google Apps administrator, transfer the Google Docs from a user to another user. An important step before the all powerful account delete process.

Note: Transferring documents from a suspended account is supported. It isn’t possible to transfer documents from a deleted account.

Log in to Google Apps and jump into the Admin Dashboard. I normally do this from Gmail.

Click Advanced Tools

Scroll to the bottom and under Document ownership transfer, fill in the From: and To: fields. Click Transfer documents to begin the process.

Google Apps will send you a notification email once the transfer is completed informing you of how many documents were transferred as well as collection it created to store the transferred documents.

Jump over to your Google Documents account and Click on the Collection specified in the email to display the transferred documents. Notice the collection will be named after the original owners email address.

Notice all the documents are now listing me as the Owner.

Something to keep in mind — although the documents have been transferred to a new owner the previous owner will still have access to them as an editor. This isn’t applicable if that person’s account is deleted or suspended, but something to keep in mind.