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Jim_Rinke's avatar
Jim_Rinke
Copper Contributor
Jan 18, 2024

What are best practices for orphaned users?

  1. Is it necessary to remove orphaned users from the User Information List?
  2. If we remove orphaned users whose accounts are disabled (not deleted), what happens to files they authored or edited in SharePoint and One Drive?
  3. Are the Created By and Modified By columns affected?
  4. What are advantages of removing orphaned users?
SharePoint Online
  • Lovneshk's avatar
    Lovneshk
    Apr 19, 2024
    Its a good Practice to remove Orphaned users from the user info list as it may cause issues related to permission conflict for a user with same name or email. there could be other issues as well.
    If we remove orphaned users whose accounts are disabled (not deleted), the files and Metadata never changes and stays as is ever after removing the orphaned users.
    Created By and Modified By columns are not affected as removing the Orphaned users doesn't affect the metadata.
  • Lovneshk's avatar
    Lovneshk
    Copper Contributor
    Apr 19, 2024
    Its a good Practice to remove Orphaned users from the user info list as it may cause issues related to permission conflict for a user with same name or email. there could be other issues as well.
    If we remove orphaned users whose accounts are disabled (not deleted), the files and Metadata never changes and stays as is ever after removing the orphaned users.
    Created By and Modified By columns are not affected as removing the Orphaned users doesn't affect the metadata.

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