Remove, deactivate, or reactivate users

Manage user accounts

Deactivate user

Deactivation is the recommended way to stop your internal users from signing into Smartsheet. This means that the corresponding user is no longer a part of your company. If the deactivation happened by mistake, you have seven consecutive days to correct the error, after which point you must remove the user and re-invite them to re-enable their access.

Users you deactivate can't sign in to Smartsheet, but items they created remain available. Upon deactivation, the user is no longer assigned a license and that license is available for you to reassign it.

You can only deactivate users in your plan who belong to any of your active domains. You can't deactivate users with emails from the following domains because it completely revokes their access to Smartsheet. Instead, remove them from your plan.

• outlook.com
• gmail.com
• hotmail.com
• live.com
• yahoo.com
• aol.com
• verizon.net
• rocketmail.com
• comcast.net
• icloud.com
• charter.net
• web.de
• mail.com
• email.com
• usa.com
• duck.com
• mail.ru

Reactivate user

If a user was deactivated by mistake, you can reactivate them. Reactivation assigns a license and restores access to shared items or items on which the user holds Owner permissions.

Our reactivation policy

• You only have seven consecutive days to reactivate a user after you've deactivated them. You won't be able to reactivate those users on the eighth day or thereafter.
• Past the seven-day period, we recommend using the Remove User option in the Admin Center. Transfer the user’s Owner permissions on items to another user and re-invite the same individual instead of trying to reactivate them. Also, ensure you don’t revoke their sharing permissions if you want them to maintain access to their shared items.

Remove user

Removing a user (previously called Delete user) permanently takes them off of your plan and revokes their access to shared items. However, you can also decide to maintain the user's access rights. Removed users can't access your plan, and their licenses are released.

When removing a user, ensure you transfer the user's Owner permissions on Smartsheet items to another user.

You can re-invite a previously removed user to your plan using the same email address.

Remove sharing permissions

When removing a user, Admin Center prompts you to decide whether to remove their sharing permissions as well.

You can use the Remove their access from all items owned by your plan option to withdraw a user's access to items in your plan. If you choose not to remove the user's sharing permissions after enabling the Remove User action, the user continues to retain their access to shared items. This action simply removes the user's license. 

By default, the Remove their access from all items owned by your plan option is enabled.

UAP users

You can remove users if User Auto Provisioning (UAP) is enabled in your plan. However, if a previously removed user logs back in and isn't part of another plan, they'll be readded to the original plan with UAP active for that domain. Note that the user won't display on the User Management screen unless they log back into Smartsheet. Learn more about UAP.

To remove, deactivate, or reactivate users

1. Go to Admin Center.  
2. Select User Management.
3. Hover over the row of the user account you want to manage.
4. On the right side of the row, select to open the action menu.
5. Select:
   • Remove Sharing
   • Deactivate User
   • Remove User
   • Reactivate User

To find deactivated users

1. Go to the Admin Center.
2. Select User Management.
3. On the top right, change the filter setting from Show All Users to Deactivated.
4. Search for the deactivated user account.

To transfer Owner permissions of items and groups

1. Go to Admin Center.
2. Select User Management.
3. Hover over the row of the user account you want to manage.
4. On the right side of the row, select .
5. You can select:
   • Transfer Owner Permissions...
   • Transfer Owned Groups...
   • (Optional) Remove Sharing
   • (Optional) Remove from Groups

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Other things to know

• You can't remove yourself from an plan even if you're a System Admin. Another System Admin must remove you from the plan. 
• You can't revoke access to Smartsheet or deactivate users through external integration.
• Deactivating a user immediately revokes all API access tokens they've generated. The deactivated user can no longer use them.
• Use the filter dropdown in the top right corner to find users by status or type. Can't find a user? Try changing the filter setting. 
• The Admin Center and API calls will display an error message if you attempt to reactivate a user after more than seven days from being deactivated.
• If a System Admin transfers Owner permissions for an item to another user without removing the previous Owner's sharing permissions, the previous Owner will retain their Admin permissions.