Seasonal and high-turnover teams need more than a mailbox create button. This page is the decision model for the SmtpMan email lifecycle—active, archived, disabled, and deleted—so you can set policy for onboarding, off-season retention, and rehire without paying for inactive seats year-round. Use the linked guides for step-by-step account procedures; use this page for states, ownership, and operating policy.
Hiring spikes, idle seats between seasons, and leftover access are one operating problem—not three separate IT tickets.
Peak seasons need dozens or hundreds of mailboxes in days—with day-one access to schedules and safety notices.
Accounts left active after the season still consume seats even when nobody is working—or get deleted so history disappears.
Former seasonal staff who keep a live login can still receive or send operational mail until someone revokes access.
For a step-by-step operating playbook, start with How to manage seasonal employee email accounts. Cost of idle seats is covered separately on Stop paying for inactive email seats.
Pick a state from access need, retention need, and whether the person is expected back—not from habit.
Seasonal email account state-transition matrix
SmtpMan first-party product behavior · Verified: 2026-07-22
| State | Access | Mail retention | Seat cost behavior | Rehire readiness |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active | Full login and send/receive | Mailbox live and growing | Billed as an active seat (USD $0.99) | Already working |
| Archived | Login revoked; no send/receive | Mailbox history retained for reactivation | $0.00 while archived | Ready to restore for returning staff |
| Disabled | Login blocked pending review | Mailbox held; not the long-term off-season state | Treat as transitional—decide archive or delete | Only after policy check and reactivation path |
| Deleted | None | Removed per your deletion timing | No seat | Requires a new account—not a rehire restore |
Retention assumption: Archived mailboxes retain history for reactivation under SmtpMan product policy. This matrix does not define a legal retention period—use your counsel and the Employee offboarding email retention policy guide for that decision.
The season ends, access must stop, and you may rehire the same person next peak—or need the mailbox history without paying an active seat.
There is no rehire path and your retention policy says the mailbox should not be kept. Do not delete only to “save a license” if you still need the record.
Clear ownership and day-one access beat last-minute mailbox tickets during a hiring spike.
Assign roles and ownership
Ops owns the hire list; IT/admin owns provisioning. Name who approves archives at season end before the rush starts.
Provision day-one access
Create active accounts from the hire list so schedules and safety notices land on day one—not after the first missed shift.
Ready groups and broadcasts
Place new hires into site, shift, or role groups so operational mail and broadcasts can reach them without personal chat threads.
When the season ends, archive—not delete by default. Archive revokes access, keeps mailbox history for reactivation, and drops the seat to $0.00 while the account stays in your tenant for returning staff.
Procedure detail: Archive employee email without deleting data.
maya@team.example.com
Seasonal associate · Peak 2025
leo@team.example.com
Seasonal associate · Peak 2025
Rehire should restore the right mailbox—not leave last season’s access open by mistake.
Match the returning person to the archived account and current site or shift assignment before restoring login.
Move archived → active so mail history returns with the seat. Billing resumes only while the seat is active.
Put the account back into the correct broadcast and site groups so day-one schedules reach them again.
Procedure detail: Reactivate a former employee email account securely. For retention and delete decisions, see Employee offboarding email retention policy.
Pillar for the decision model; guides and the calculator for procedures and cost evidence.
Operating playbook for seasonal and temporary worker mailboxes.
How archive stops access while keeping mailbox history.
Rehire checks before restoring an archived mailbox.
When to keep, archive, or delete after offboarding.
Estimate idle-seat spend between seasons.
Cost framing for ghost seats and elastic licensing.
Next step
Request early access to run the lifecycle—or estimate what idle seats cost you today.