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How to Remove or Transfer a Microsoft Form Owned by a Former Employee

Maira Mehtab Sep 21, 2026 868 views

Question details

The user needs to remove, delete, or transfer ownership of a Microsoft Form created by an employee who has left the company, as the form remains active and continues to collect responses.

Product: Microsoft Forms
Device & OS: not provided
Scenario: Managing or deleting active Microsoft Forms tied to a disabled or deleted user account.
Observed behavior: The form remains shared, editable, and capable of collecting responses even after the original creator's account has been disabled or deleted.

Before you start

Verify whether the former employee's Microsoft 365 account was deleted within the last 30 days, as accounts within this time window are generally still recoverable for direct administration.

Solution 1Recommended

Restore the Account and Transfer Ownership

If the account was deleted recently, an administrator can restore it in the admin center to manually transfer the form's ownership to another active user.

Access the Admin Center

Log into the Microsoft 365 admin center as a Global Administrator and navigate to the 'Active users' or 'Deleted users' section.

Restore the Account

If the account was deleted less than 30 days ago, select the former employee's account and click 'Restore user'.

Transfer Form Ownership

Once the account is accessible, log in or use the admin tools to access the user's forms and move the specific form to a shared Microsoft 365 Group, transferring its ownership.

Recovery Window: Deleted user accounts are normally only recoverable for 30 days. If this window has passed, you will need to try an alternative method.

Solution 2

Locate Form Data and Remove via SharePoint or OneDrive

Determine exactly where the form data is hosted so that an administrator can delete it directly from the storage location.

Solution 3

Contact Microsoft 365 Support

Use this method if the account has been permanently deleted, the 30-day recovery window has passed, and ownership cannot be manually transferred.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How long is a deleted Microsoft 365 account recoverable?

A deleted user account in Microsoft 365 is normally recoverable for up to 30 days after deletion. After this period, the account and its associated data may be permanently removed, making manual form transfers impossible without Microsoft Support.

Can I transfer a Microsoft Form without restoring the user account?

If the account was deleted and the 30-day window has passed, you generally cannot manually transfer ownership yourself. You must either access the underlying SharePoint location (if it was a Group form) or contact Microsoft Support for backend assistance.

How do I know if a form is stored in OneDrive or SharePoint?

Navigate to the 'Responses' tab of the active form and click 'Open in Excel'. Pay attention to the URL of the resulting file or the storage location it attempts to open from—this will indicate whether the data is hosted in the former employee's personal OneDrive or a shared SharePoint site.

What happens to a form if the creator's account is permanently deleted?

If the form was stored strictly in the user's personal environment and the account is permanently purged after 30 days, the form is typically scheduled for deletion. However, orphaned forms sometimes remain active and accessible via their sharing links, requiring administrative intervention to properly remove.

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