If You're Going To Retire from Your Job, Delete These Things From Your PC

Retirement can be a long-awaited joy: no more work, but only life for yourself. But there are a few things you need to do before you leave the office for the last time.

If you have a couple of final hours at work, use your remaining time wisely by backing up all the important stuff and clearing the data on your computer. Here’s a reminder of what to remove from your work device.

Don’t forget to save what’s important

Before you delete all information from your work computer, be sure to save the most important things: PDF documents, photos, your resume, and other files that are dear to your heart.

If you need to save a lot of files, use USB drives. They are cheap, fit easily in your pocket, and can store at least two to four gigabytes of data. Another option for transferring files is Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive cloud storage services. The main thing is to check that you are logged in under your personal and not a work account. If you need to copy several gigabytes of data, it is better to use an external hard drive.

Be sure to check what information you are copying – it must be personal and not contain any sensitive data about your company. Otherwise, you may get into trouble.

When you finally leave, you will no longer have access to corporate mail. If you still have any important letters or contacts you need on it, forward them to your personal email.

Delete corporate mail

If you are using an email client (rather than accessing through a browser), log out of all email accounts and ask your IT department to delete the work email account.

Be ready that the IT department can set a delayed deletion since, in some organizations, it is customary to keep all correspondence for several months or years, even after an employee’s retirement.

Clear your browser history

When deleting sites that you visited, don’t forget that the browser can also store your passwords. Even if these may seem “unimportant” passwords, they can make your mail and social networks vulnerable. After all, many of us use the same or similar passwords to access social networks and secondary sites. Thus, it’s important to know how to delete your search history properly.

In Chrome’s advanced settings, there is a “Passwords and Forms” section – click on the “Settings” link and clean out the unwanted entries. In Safari, the codes are stored in the Passwords tab, while in Firefox, they are stored under the security settings.

Clear all messenger history and clear cookies

Many log in to personal accounts from a work computer. After you go to retirement, this can give your employer an opportunity to keep an eye on you. Log out of messaging and social media apps, and remove apps and their passwords. Clear your cookies: they reveal your browsing activity and your preferences.

Better delete all data from your work computer

Ideally, you shouldn’t be using your work computer for private correspondence and personal stuff. But sometimes, the line between personal and work time can be extremely blurred.

You cannot erase all the data if you don’t have administrator rights. So at least remove all personal information from the computer before you give the device to your IT team. But if you have full access to the files, then delete absolutely everything. First, copy everything you need, and then completely clean the computer. This can take several hours, so plan ahead.

If you use macOS devices, you can delete all data from your computer by simply reinstalling the operating system. How to do this is written in detail in the Apple Support Center.

If you have a Windows system installed on your computer, use the DBAN complete computer cleaning program.

Why should you delete all the data from your work computer? The fact is that you don’t know what will happen to this device in the future. Perhaps it will be given to another employee or sold. The safest thing to do would be to leave no trace behind.

If you don’t have enough rights to delete all information from your work computer yourself, then your IT department can do it for you. But it’s better for personal security to log out of all active applications, delete browser history and passwords, and log out of all the available accounts.

Delete everything from your phone

If you are lucky enough to work for a firm that gave you a company mobile phone, then you will also need to delete all data from it. Fortunately, doing this is much faster and easier than with computers.

For an iPhone:

Go to the General section of the Settings menu.
Choose Reset data at the bottom of the page as you scroll down.
Click “Delete all content and settings” after that.

Your phone will be factory reset with this. Do the same if you own an iPad.

For an Android device:

Go to the Settings menu.
Locate the “Reset and restore data” option under the “Personal settings” menu. Choose “Factory reset”.

Depending on the phone model, the settings menu may look different, but the main thing is that you should find the section on resetting and restoring data.

Final words

We hope retirement gives you a better chance to bond with friends and family. Erase all your traces from the last job, and enjoy your retirement!