Outlook: Clearing all emails from computer

[maxiedaniels]

Quick question, my girlfriend just got hired at a new job and is nervous leaving her company because apparently when employees leave, the CEO goes through all their email.

I've backed up all her email to her personal computer, but her work computer has Outlook Exchange 2007 with all of her email on it.

I need to A) delete all email from the computer and B) delete all emails from the server.

I think the server deleting is easy - it seems you can just log into the Outlook web app and just delete all the folders.

Regarding the work computer itself - I've found the instruction online to go to Tools > Account Settings, select an account and remove. But, I want to make sure this actually gets rid of everything instead of just removing the account reference and still storing the email on the drive...

Anyone know Exchange well enough to help me?

Thanks!

 

[MrGuvernment]

Why would she be using work email for personal things in the first place

if the work has any semi decent IT they already have a backup of her emails and if it is on their own hosted mail server like Exchange they do, and nothing you can do about it and then it looks even worse if she goes and deletes a bunch they can just recover anyways.

Is this a laptop or something she takes home?

Lesson, dont use work email for personal crap.

with exchange server even if you delete the emails, they can still be fully recovered.

 

[maxiedaniels]

To clarify - she didn't use it for personal email. Her CEO is highly unprofessional and in the past has gone through an employee's email who left the company and started sending emails under the employees name to clients of theirs (this is a sales team).

I realize the IT guy has backups but the CEO would hopefully not care enough to go that far. I just need to know how she can cover her bases to a decent extent.

 

[PTNL]

I don't see a way for your g/f to stop the unprofessional CEO from doing this.

The best suggestion I can think of is to pre-empt her departure notice by having your girlfriend notify the clients from her personal email address. Basically a simple notice "that my last day is ____", and thanking the client for the opportunity to work with them; just avoid anything along the lines of poaching the employer's customer base. The timing has to be immediately after she gives her resignation to the CEO (or direct boss).

That way, if any malicious communication is sent by the CEO, it would originate from the work email. The good clients would consequently see an odd pattern in communication, and could contact your girlfriend directly with any questions about the message.

 

[MrGuvernment]

What they said! ^^

The g/f needs to send out a wide email letting all of her contacts know she is leaving / left the company and they should only contact her using X method, but do it from another location and she can let people know that if they ever receive emails from her old X email address to ignore them as they are not her sending them

 

[x509]

What they said! ^^

The g/f needs to send out a wide email letting all of her contacts know she is leaving / left the company and they should only contact her using X method, but do it from another location and she can let people know that if they ever receive emails from her old X email address to ignore them as they are not her sending them

+1 to these last two suggestions. The default backup on Outlook (at least with Office 365) is two years for email with I think two months for calendar items.

It's important to leave a job on a professional "high note." You never know when you need a reference and you will never know if someone gets a phone call for an "informal reference."