You may have computers or users set up that need to eventually be moved somewhere else, perhaps due to an employee move, business sale, or other organizational change. This article discusses the options for moving devices and user to other accounts.
Moving a device
It is not possible to move archives from one account to another. The archive encryption key is tied to the specific user account by which it is created. This means there is no way to move a device from one user to another without starting the backup over.
If you would like to start a new archive under a different user account, you will need to deauthorize/sign out of the CrashPlan app's current user account on the desired device, an action which can be performed from within the CrashPlan app using the CrashPlan command line interface (CLI), or via the CrashPlan console. Deauthorizing a device signs the current user out of the CrashPlan app and deletes the local cache files from the device. Users can sign in again at any time after this has been performed, using the desired user account credentials.
To sign out of the CrashPlan app:
- Open the CrashPlan app.
- Double-click the CrashPlan logo in the top-left corner of the app or press Shift + Control + C (Option + Command + C on Mac) to open the CrashPlan command line window.
- Type: deauthorize
- Press Enter.
If you decide to transfer a device to another user account using the steps above, you will have an an active device on the account which is no longer in use, and this will cause the renewal cost of the subscription to increase if left it remains active on the account. To avoid this, you can deactivate the inactive device entry from your account.
Deactivating a device from your account will delete all of the backup data tied to this device entry from the CrashPlan for Small Business cloud destination. This is a permanent action, and cannot be reversed.
To remove a computer from your CrashPlan for Small Business account, please perform the following actions:
- Sign in to the CrashPlan console.
- Click Devices in the navigation menu.
- Click on the name of the device that you would like to deactivate.
- Click the action menu icon
in the upper-right of the device information pane.
- Click Deactivate from the menu options.
- When prompted, check the box and click OK to confirm the device deactivation and archive deletion.
Moving a user
As with devices, you cannot move a user from one organization to another without restarting any backup associated with their user account.
If you would like to move a user to a different organization within the CrashPlan for Small Business environment, you will need to deactivate the user from the current account (as a reminder, user deactivation will delete any backup data associated with the user account), and then add the user to the desired organization.
IMPORTANT: An email address can be used with only one CrashPlan for Small Business or CrashPlan user account at a time. If you would like to reuse the email address for a new user in another organization, first you must modify the email address of the deactivated user account, then register the user account to the desired organization. A simple "deactivated_" should suffice, for example: deactivated_user@domain.net.
Perform the following actions to deactivate a CrashPlan for Small Business user account:
- Sign in to the CrashPlan console.
- Click Users > Active in the navigation menu.
- Click on the name (not the checkbox) of the user you would like to deactivate to bring up the user information pane.
- Click the action menu icon
- Select Deactivate from the list.
- When prompted, check the box and click OK to confirm the user account deactivation and archive deletion.
Note: You cannot deactivate the user account created when you had initially registered. You can change the email address/credentials for this user, but it cannot be removed from the account.
Once the user account is deactivated, you can add the user to the new organization (either by invitation or by adding their account manually.