What happens to your work accounts when you leave a job

Your accounts are not yours

This is the part people know but do not act on. Your work email, your work Google Drive or OneDrive, your Slack or Teams, all of it belongs to your employer. They pay for it, they control it, and when you leave, they switch it off.

How fast varies. Some companies keep things open until the end of the last day. Others remove access the moment you hand in your laptop. Plan for the fast version.

What usually disappears, and when

What	Typical outcome when you leave
Work email	Closed, or redirected to a colleague
Work cloud files	Kept by the company, your access removed
Work chat (Slack, Teams)	Deactivated; your messages stay with the company
Accounts you created with your work email	Still exist, but you cannot reset their passwords
Benefits portals and payslip sites	Often still reachable, but sometimes only through the work login

The fourth row is the one that bites later. A software trial, a newsletter, a supplier portal, even a personal shopping account signed up with your work address. Once the email is gone, every “forgot password” link goes to an inbox you cannot open.

A checklist for your last month

I would do this in the weeks before, not the last afternoon.

1. Search your work email for “welcome” and “verify”. It finds most accounts you signed up for with that address.
2. Change the email address on any of those that are personal or that you need to keep.
3. Save your personal documents: payslips, tax forms, pension details, your contract, references. Most are yours to keep.
4. Export personal contacts, the people you want to stay in touch with, not the company’s customer list.
5. Update LinkedIn with a personal email so you can still sign in.
6. Move personal photos or files you saved on the work laptop.

What you can take, and what you cannot

The line is simpler than it feels. Your own things, your payslips, your holiday photos that ended up on the work laptop, your contacts with friends, are yours. Company documents, customer data, code and anything you produced as part of the job belong to the company, even if you wrote all of it.

Copying company files on the way out can break your contract and sometimes the law. If you are unsure about something, ask before you take it.

The habit that saves all of this

Most of this mess comes from one habit: using the work email for personal things. It is convenient, it is always open, and it is a trap.

Keep a personal email for everything that is yours and use the work email only for work. Kept apart from the start, leaving a job one day costs an afternoon, not a scramble.

The short version

Your last day is the deadline for anything tied to work accounts. Sort out the accounts using your work email, save your personal documents, and leave company data where it belongs. Then the account switching off is just a formality.