Move users between schools
Move users between schools
Use Move users to transfer one or more users to another school in the trust — for example staff moving between academies, or setting people up at their new school ahead of time. You can select several users and move them together.
This wizard is for manually-created users or pre-emptive setup. If the new school's MIS will create the person itself, it's usually better to let the sync create them and then combine the two records with Merge users.
What happens to the email
The wizard works it out from the two schools' sign-in domains and shows you per user:
- The schools share a domain — the email doesn't change at all. Only the school assignment (and group memberships) change; no account action happens.
- The domains differ — the email changes to the destination school's domain. The Google/Entra account is renamed in place (the same account, at the new address), so Drive, email and Classroom content stay with the person. You choose what happens to the old address: keep it as an alias (mail still arrives) or free it (stops working immediately).
Steps
Step 1 — Choose the users {#step-1}
Sidebar → Users & Groups → Move users. Search and tick everyone who's moving. (You need admin access to more than one school.)
Step 2 — Choose the destination and decisions {#step-2}
- Destination school — any school you're authorised for.
- Old address — alias or freed (only applies where the email actually changes).
- Old school's groups — recommended on: the movers are removed from their old school's groups, so they stop appearing in those Google group emails.
Step 3 — Review the per-user preview {#step-3}
Each user gets their own card showing: source → destination, the exact email outcome (changed with the alias decision, or unchanged), how many old-school groups they leave, and any Classrooms they still own at the old school (these keep working — same account — and can be reassigned from Groups when ready). Anyone whose move would collide (username already taken at the destination) is flagged and can be excluded from the batch.
Avoiding a duplicate later — the MIS ID box. The destination school's MIS feed matches people by their MIS ID at that school. A moved-in user doesn't have one yet, so a later MIS sync may create a duplicate account for them. If you know the person's MIS ID at the destination, enter it here — the feed will then recognise them and no duplicate is created. If you leave it blank, watch for a duplicate after the next MIS sync and resolve it with Merge users.
Step 4 — Confirm {#step-4}
Select Confirm move. Each user is queued independently, account first, records after — if one user's account rename can't complete, only that user is held (with the reason in their Logs); the rest of the batch proceeds. Moves usually complete within a few minutes.
Troubleshooting
- "A user was flagged with a collision" — their username is already taken at the destination (or on its shared domain). Rename them first (see Rename a user), or exclude them from the batch.
- "The move was held" — check the user's Logs tab for the reason. A common cause on cross-domain moves is that the destination domain isn't part of the same Google tenancy — in that case the account can't be carried over automatically; contact support.
- "A duplicate appeared after the next sync" — the MIS ID wasn't known at move time. Use Merge users to combine the two records, keeping the moved account as the primary.