OneDrive for Business former employee OneDrive access troubleshooting for project teams: goes to the wrong approver

When a project team requests access to a former employee’s OneDrive files, the approval request sometimes goes to the wrong person or to no one at all. This happens because OneDrive redirects access requests to the site collection administrator, which may be a system account or an unintended user. This article explains why the wrong approver is assigned and how to redirect requests to the correct project manager or team lead.

Why Access Requests Go to the Wrong Approver

Each OneDrive for Business site is a special SharePoint site collection. By default, the site collection administrator is the user who originally owned the OneDrive. When that user leaves the organization, the site still exists, but the owner account is disabled. SharePoint then routes access requests to the site collection admin, which may be a system account, a global admin, or an inactive user. The request does not automatically go to the former employee’s manager or the project team unless the site collection admin is manually reassigned.

The Microsoft 365 admin center does not show OneDrive site access requests in a single dashboard. Instead, each request appears in the SharePoint site collection settings of the former employee’s OneDrive. If no active site collection admin exists, the request may be sent to the tenant-level SharePoint admin, who likely does not know the project context.

Project teams often expect the approval to go to the former employee’s manager or a specific project lead. The default routing does not match this expectation. The fix requires changing the site collection admin on the former employee’s OneDrive to an active user who can evaluate the access request.

Steps to Reassign the Site Collection Admin for a Former Employee’s OneDrive

Follow these steps to change the site collection administrator on a former employee’s OneDrive so access requests go to the correct approver.

1. Sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center
   Go to admin.microsoft.com and sign in with an account that has SharePoint admin or global admin permissions.
2. Open the SharePoint admin center
   In the left navigation, select Show all then choose SharePoint. Alternatively, go directly to admin.microsoft.com/SharePoint.
3. Navigate to the More features section
   In the SharePoint admin center, select More features from the left menu. Under User profiles, click Open.
4. Manage user profiles
   In the User profiles section, click Manage user profiles. A list of all user profiles in the organization appears.
5. Find the former employee’s profile
   Type the former employee’s name or email in the search box and press Enter. Click the profile to open it.
6. Reassign the OneDrive site collection admin
   In the profile details, scroll to the Site Collection Administrators section. Remove any existing entries and add the email address of the project team lead or manager who should approve access requests. Click OK.
7. Verify the change
   Open the former employee’s OneDrive URL (typically https://yourtenant-my.sharepoint.com/personal/username_domain_com). Go to Site settings > Site collection administrators and confirm the new admin is listed.

If Access Requests Still Go to the Wrong Approver

Access request settings are not configured for the site

Even after reassigning the site collection admin, access requests may still go to the SharePoint admin if the site’s access request settings are not set correctly. To fix this, go to the former employee’s OneDrive site, select the gear icon, then Site permissions. Under Access requests, click Change settings. Ensure the option Allow access requests is enabled and that the email address field contains the correct approver’s email. If this field is empty, SharePoint sends requests to the site collection admin. Fill in the project team lead’s email address here.

The former employee’s OneDrive has been deleted

If the former employee’s OneDrive has been deleted within 30 days, you can restore it from the SharePoint admin center. Go to SharePoint admin center > Deleted sites and find the site. Select it and click Restore. After restoration, follow the steps above to reassign the site collection admin. After 30 days, the OneDrive is permanently deleted and cannot be recovered. In that case, project teams must request data from the former employee’s manager if backups exist.

Multiple access requests are pending and need manual approval

Pending access requests can be reviewed and approved directly in the former employee’s OneDrive site. Go to Site settings > Access requests and invitations. A list of pending requests appears. Each request shows the requesting user and the files they want to access. Select the checkboxes for the requests you want to approve, then click Approve. You can also reject or delete requests. This method bypasses the email routing issue entirely.

Access Request Routing: Before vs After Site Collection Admin Change

Item	Before Site Collection Admin Change	After Site Collection Admin Change
Approver type	System account or original owner	Active project team lead or manager
Email notification	Sent to disabled or incorrect user	Sent to the newly assigned admin
Approval delay	Hours or days until admin intervenes	Minutes after the request is made
Permission to approve	Only SharePoint admins can override	Project lead can approve directly

After making the change, the project team lead receives an email notification for each new access request. They can approve or deny requests from the email link or from the OneDrive site settings. This eliminates the need for the SharePoint admin to manually forward requests to the correct person.

To automate this process for multiple former employees, use the SharePoint Online Management Shell. The cmdlet Set-SPOUser -Site <SiteURL> -LoginName <UserEmail> -IsSiteCollectionAdmin $true adds a new site collection admin. Run this for each former employee’s OneDrive URL. You can export a list of all OneDrive sites using Get-SPOSite -IncludePersonalSite $true and filter by the former employee’s domain.

Test the new routing by having a team member submit an access request to a test file in the former employee’s OneDrive. Verify that the notification arrives in the correct approver’s inbox within 15 minutes. If not, check the access request settings again or confirm that the new site collection admin has a valid email address in Azure Active Directory.