Accessibility statement

Information for staff leavers

Note: This information does not apply to Research Students, who for this purpose are treated as students, and should refer to: 

If you are leaving the University, access to IT Services facilities (including email and York Print Plus) will be withdrawn one day after your employment officially ends.

If HR are notifed that you are leaving the University after you have left, then IT Services facilities will be withdrawn one day after HR have been notified.

This is in response to the requirements of research funders and auditors, and ensures we can prevent unauthorised access to University data. You will receive an email to warn you one day before your account closes.

The data in your University Google account and your files in your personal filestore (M: and H: drives) will be saved for one year after expiry, to allow it to be reactivated should you return to the University during this time.

This page gives pointers on what to do if you are:

If you have any further queries, please contact IT Support before you leave - ideally at least two weeks before you leave, to give us time to resolve any issues for you.

Leaving the University

Before you leave the University, we advise you to to check the following services and transfer data you need from your account:

NOTE: When transferring data out of your University account you must ensure that any confidential or restricted University data is NOT included.

For details on what the University classifies as confidential or restricted data see: Information classification & handling

Personal filestore (M: and H: drives)

If your personal filestore contains files that you will still need after you leave the University, you should take a copy of these before you go. If there are files that other people will need to access after you leave (eg shared documents), make sure that you share copies with them.

Please also see the information on research data below.

Email

Once your IT account expires all email will be rejected, with a notification sent to the sender. Any email forwarding that you've set up will cease to operate. We recommend that you make your contacts aware of your new email address before your account expires. You should unsubscribe from any mailing lists, or update your subscription with your new email address.

York Alumni Association offers all graduates and retired staff a University email address for life, hosted by Google:

Exporting emails from your University account

NOTE: When copying emails out of your University account it is vital that any confidential or restricted University data is not included.

Any information about students (including marks, hand-ins or emails from students) are personal data under GDPR. Within York’s email environment, suitable legal contracts are in place to allow for processing such information. Exporting any data that is considered personal data under GDPR would be a breach of the GDPR and could expose you personally to liability.

Download your data from Google

You can download specific email labels/folders using Google Takeout:

Emails will be downloaded as MBOX files which you may be able to import into another email service (if your chosen email provider supports it). 

IT Services are unable to offer assistance importing MBOX files to other email providers, however Google provide links to instructions in the archive_browser.html file included in the download.

Not recommended: Copy your data to another Google account

Google offer a facility to copy emails from your University account to a personal Gmail account.

However, this tool automatically copies all of your emails and does not offer an option to copy a subset of your email. Therefore we do not recommend staff use this method as the risk of confidential or restricted University data being included is too high.

Students can find full details on our student leavers webpage:

Google Drive

Download your data from Google

You can download some or all of your Google Drive data using Google Takeout:

Any Google Docs, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Slides and Forms will be converted to another format of your choice. Please note that you will lose the revision history and (depending on which format you select) you may also lose comments.

Not recommended: Copy your data to another Google account

Google offer a facility to copy Google Drive data from your University account to another Google account.

However, this tool automatically copies all of your Google Drive data and does not offer an option to copy specific files or folders. Therefore we do not advise staff use this method the risk of confidential or restricted University data being included is too high.

Students can find full details on our student leavers webpage:

Shared files in Google Drive

If you own shared files, it's important that you transfer the ownership before you leave the University. This is harder to do once you've left, and your colleagues will need our help to transfer the files. If they're not transferred within 12 months of you leaving, the files will be deleted by Google, and can't then be recovered. Several departments have lost access to work when this happens.

If you are leaving the University, you should check what files you own in Google Drive by searching owner:me in the search box. Alternatively you can use our Add-on to collate files you own into a Google Sheet (UoY login required).

An easy way to ensure that files are not lost is to transfer these files into a Google Shared Drive, and add your team members to it. When you move a file into a Shared Drive the ownership of the file automatically passes over to the Shared Drive itself and is no longer owned by an individual account. This means you will not lose files when a member of your team leaves.

Find out more about using Shared Drives:

Alternatively, you could transfer ownership of your files to a colleague. However, be aware that changing the owner of a folder doesn't change the owner of the files within that folder; you will need to change the owner of the files separately (you can highlight multiple files in a folder and transfer them all at once).

If you need to change ownership for a large number of items, including lots of folders, subfolders and files please contact IT Support with the details as we can arrange a bulk transfer for you.

Please also see the information on research data below.

If someone is leaving your team

If a member of your team is leaving (or has recently left) the University, you can see what files they have shared with you by searching owner:jo.bloggs@york.ac.uk in the search box. Ask them to transfer ownership (see above) before they leave. If they have already left, contact us for advice.

Research data

If your personal filestore and/or Google Drive contains research data that you have created/collected, please ensure that you appraise your research data, and take appropriate action:

  • Dispose of research data securely, if the data has fulfilled its purpose.
  • Archive research data in an appropriate research data archive or repository, if the data underpins a publication or is considered to have long-term research value. You must comply with any funder requirements and meet all your legal and/or ethical obligations in this respect.

Please see the advice from the open Research team on data management:

  • Sharing, preserving and depositing your data

Video conferencing

Zoom

When you leave the university, any Zoom links created by your Zoom account will no longer work. See our Zoom wiki page on Leaving the University (login required) for more information on what steps you can take.

Google Meet

If you are listed as an ‘organiser’ of any Google Calendar events with a Google Meet link, you will need to change the owner of these events for the event/link to remain. See this guide on how to change the owner of a calendar event.

Other accounts

If you are the owner of any other IT accounts then these will also expire at the same time as your main account. If any of these accounts will still be required by the University after you leave, please email IT Support so that ownership can be transferred to a colleague.

You can view a list of any other IT accounts that you own on the My IT Account webpage, under Account Information.

Changing staff status

If you are moving from a casual contract to become a full member of staff, your department's People Database Administrator will need to provision an early registration associate account, otherwise your IT account will be disabled for up to two weeks, while HR issue the P45 for your casual employment, and update your HR record to your new employment status.

If you are leaving the University, but retaining a relationship with your former department (eg as an Emeritus or Honorary Professor), your department's People Database Administrator can give you Associate Status to enable you to retain access to your IT account and email.