Before archiving users, let us first understand its impact, and get clarity on what exactly happens when you assign Google Workspace archive license to a user.

This is what happens when you assign Google Workspace Archive User license to a user.

1. Archived User can not login to Google Workspace services.
   
   
2. Archived User can no longer receive emails, calendar invites or files.
   
   
3. Gmail filters of archived users (e.g email forwarding filters setup in Gmail settings) will stop working.
   Workaround –> however if you want to forward their emails, consider creating a default routing or content compliance policy in Google Workspace admin console which changes the envelope recipient from archiveduser@domain.com TO someactiveuser@domain.com.
   
4. Archived user’s data is retained in Google Vault as per your Vault retention rules, so Vault admins can search, investigate and export the data if required.
   
   
5. Documents, Calendar invites and/or Google Sites owned by archived user will still be available for viewers and editors (within and outside domain as usual).
   
   
6. DLP policies would be applied on archived users data too (if you have applied “Google Workspace Archive Enterprise” SKU), for e.g if you can create a new DLP policy saying “if the credit card number is found in docs, then block external sharing, it’ll be applied on archived user’s data too).
   
   
7. Archived user will not show up in your Google Workspace Directory (contacts).