Freshteam Sunset Guide: Export, Migration, and Data Controls
On this page 14 sections
Freshteam is being sunset. As of this article’s September 13, 2026 revision, it should not be evaluated as a new long-term ATS or HR software purchase. Existing customers should export their data, select and validate a replacement, migrate active work, preserve required history, disconnect integrations, and obtain closure evidence before their account-access window ends.
Freshteam’s official notice says all renewals stopped in June 2026 and paid customers retain access for 90 days after subscription expiry to export data. Free customers receive a shorter 14-day post-expiry download period. The same FAQ contains inconsistent June 1 and June 7 references, so customers should obtain their exact subscription end, access end, and deletion dates in writing from Freshteam support. Do not calculate a migration deadline from a generic article alone.
Immediate action
Request an account-specific timeline today. Then generate the full account export, store it in a controlled location, hash or otherwise inventory the delivered files, and test that the archive opens. Do this before choosing a replacement. A successful download is not yet a usable migration.
Assign an executive owner and operational owners for recruiting, employee data, payroll or finance, privacy, security, integrations, and vendor support. Establish a daily issue log until access and deletion obligations are closed.
Official sunset timeline
The Freshteam sunset FAQ, marked modified January 5, 2026, lists these main milestones:
| Event | Official FAQ statement | Required customer response |
|---|---|---|
| Deprecation start | January 5, 2026 | Begin inventory and export planning |
| Free-account expiry and renewal restrictions | March 7, 2026 in the main timeline | Confirm actual account status in writing |
| All renewals stop | June 7, 2026 in the main timeline | Do not rely on another renewal cycle |
| Paid post-expiry access | 90 days after subscription end | Complete export, validation, and migration before expiry |
| Free post-expiry access | 14 days after account expiry | Treat as an urgent export window |
| Deletion | FAQ says after the applicable post-cancellation period | Request account-specific deletion confirmation |
Another answer in the same FAQ says March 1 and June 1. Because the document is internally inconsistent, this guide does not choose one set of dates for a customer’s contract. Save the response from support and the account banner or billing record that establishes the controlling timeline.
Export scope stated by Freshteam
The sunset FAQ says the account export includes candidate, offer, requisition, job, interview-feedback, employee, onboarding, offboarding, payroll, task, time-off, location, and vendor data. It says administrators can request the export from the account settings area.
Freshteam also publishes an older ATS export guide describing account-level XML exports and some job- or candidate-specific CSV exports. The sunset export may differ from that older workflow. Use the current in-product export and support instructions, then inspect what was actually delivered.
An export inventory should record:
| Data class | Validate |
|---|---|
| Jobs and requisitions | Stable IDs, status, department, location, owner, approval, open and close dates |
| Candidates and applications | Person-to-application relationships, source, stage, disposition, consent, timestamps |
| Files and communications | Resumes, attachments, offer files, email history, interview feedback |
| Employees | Worker ID, manager, organization, dates, status, documents, onboarding and offboarding |
| Time off and payroll | Policies, requests, balances, results, period, currency, and audit history |
| Configuration | Custom fields, roles, templates, workflows, forms, career-site content, retention rules |
| Integrations and logs | Credentials inventory, external IDs, failed events, and audit evidence |
If configuration, audit logs, attachments, or email bodies are absent, request an additional supported export or decide how to preserve required evidence before access ends.
Preserve evidence before transforming data
Keep one encrypted, access-controlled copy of the original export. Do not edit it. Create a separate working copy for cleanup and mapping. Record file names, sizes, creation time, export requester, storage location, and checksum or equivalent integrity control.
This separation helps answer whether a value came from Freshteam or from the migration transformation. It also supports investigation if a relationship, note, attachment, or date changes in the replacement system.
Limit access to people performing the migration. Candidate and employee exports can contain sensitive information. Do not move the archive through personal storage, ordinary email, or an unrestricted project folder.
Select a replacement from required records
Do not recreate the old feature checklist mechanically. Identify active processes and statutory, contractual, or operational records that must survive. Then evaluate replacements with the same sample data and acceptance criteria.
For recruiting, test requisition approval, applications, duplicate people, candidate source, communications, interviews, offers, disposition, privacy rights, and hire handoff. For employee functions, test identity, organization, documents, time off, onboarding, offboarding, payroll handoff, access, and reports.
Ask every replacement vendor for a migration template, supported relationships, attachment limits, API, identity controls, security evidence, data-processing agreement, subprocessors, support, export, deletion, and itemized three-year cost. A rapid import is not useful if it loses evidence or creates indefinite duplicate records.
Map and minimize before import
Create a source-to-target mapping for every required field. Include source object and field, target object and field, transformation, owner, retention decision, legal basis or business purpose where relevant, validation rule, and fallback.
Classify records into active migration, retained archive, deletion, and manual review. Candidates with no continuing purpose should not be copied simply because they are available. Separate applicants from employees and apply different retention logic. Remove obsolete test accounts, duplicate attachments, invalid contact data, and unnecessary free-text content only in the working copy, with an audit of the decision.
Use stable identifiers to maintain relationships. Names and email addresses alone are unreliable for duplicate detection, rehires, multiple applications, or address changes.
Run two rehearsals
The first rehearsal should be small and deliberately difficult. Include missing required fields, non-ASCII names, duplicate candidates, one person with several applications, closed and reopened jobs, withdrawn applicants, attachments, offer revisions, manager changes, and time-off corrections. Test rejection reports and rollback.
The second rehearsal should use a representative authorized slice of current data. Reconcile counts, identifiers, relationships, stage, status, dates, sources, owners, attachments, permissions, and totals. Obtain sign-off from each data owner.
Do not begin the final load until transformations are frozen. Repeatedly changing mapping rules during migration makes reconciliation unreliable.
Reconcile active recruiting
Choose a cutoff for new requisitions, applications, interviews, offers, and hires. Decide whether Freshteam, the replacement, or a controlled manual queue owns each event during the transition. Avoid allowing both systems to send candidate messages.
At cutoff, reconcile:
- Open requisitions and published jobs.
- Active candidates by job and stage.
- Scheduled interviews and pending feedback.
- Outstanding offers and approval status.
- Recent hires awaiting downstream creation.
- Withdrawn, rejected, suppressed, and retained records.
- Failed job-board, calendar, email, assessment, and HRIS events.
Notify recruiters and hiring managers of the freeze, change, and escalation route. Preserve candidate-facing links only if they remain supported through the transition.
API and integration shutdown
Freshteam’s developer API documentation can help identify integrations built against candidate, job, employee, or related objects. An API reference does not provide an automatic sunset migration. Inventory every token, webhook, middleware flow, scheduled export, job board, calendar, mailbox, identity connection, assessment, background-check service, e-signature tool, HRIS, payroll, and data warehouse.
For each connection, identify owner, credential, objects, direction, frequency, external IDs, last successful run, failure queue, replacement route, and revocation date. Drain or reconcile queued events before disabling it. Then revoke credentials and confirm that retired jobs, forms, webhooks, and career-site links no longer collect data into an account nearing deletion.
Privacy and retention during migration
Freshteam’s support site links its privacy and terms resources. Save the versions relevant to the customer’s service and verify the contractual deletion and assistance commitments.
The UK Information Commissioner’s Office provides recruitment and selection data-protection guidance. It does not evaluate Freshteam. It helps migration teams maintain purpose limitation, transparency, accuracy, retention, security, and individual rights while records move.
During the transition, route access, correction, objection, restriction, and deletion requests across Freshteam, the export archive, migration staging, the replacement, and connected processors. Record which copy is authoritative and which is legally retained. Do not promise deletion if backups or a required archive remain without a documented exception.
Security controls for the migration
Freshworks publishes a security page with company-level statements. Those statements do not cover the customer’s migration workspace. The customer must secure exports and temporary tooling directly.
Use named least-privileged accounts, multi-factor authentication, encrypted storage and transfer, time-limited access, activity logging, secrets management, and a deletion schedule for temporary copies. Prohibit production candidate data in unapproved AI tools or generic conversion websites. Review scripts and vendors used to transform data.
Test restoration of the preserved original archive and the replacement system’s backup process. A migration can fail after Freshteam access ends, so rollback may mean restoring or reprocessing the archive rather than returning to the service.
Acceptance and closure checklist
| Gate | Pass evidence |
|---|---|
| Timeline | Freshteam confirms subscription end, access end, export deadline, and deletion date |
| Original export | Files are inventoried, protected, and readable |
| Mapping | Required fields and relationships have approved transformations |
| Replacement | Normal and exception workflows pass with the proposed configuration |
| Reconciliation | Record counts, statuses, attachments, balances, and totals match at cutoff |
| Integrations | Queues are drained, replacement routes work, and old credentials are revoked |
| Privacy | Requests, retention, deletion, and notice apply across every migration copy |
| Operations | Users are trained, support is active, and issue ownership is named |
| Exit | Freshteam access is no longer operationally required |
| Closure | Export retention and eventual account deletion are documented |
Do not close the project when the replacement login works. Close it when the organization can operate, answer data requests, reproduce required records, and prove that old collection paths and access have ended.
Unknowns to resolve with support
The public FAQ does not determine each customer’s subscription expiry, precise access cutoff, export completeness, attachment coverage, audit-log availability, assistance level, or deletion evidence. Its date discrepancy makes written account confirmation necessary.
Ask Freshteam support to confirm the account ID, plan, billing end, product access end, export deadline, data categories and formats, missing objects, maximum number of exports, support response, API availability, post-expiry behavior, deletion date, backup treatment, and confirmation method. Save the answer with the migration record.
Final decision
Do not start or renew a strategic Freshteam deployment. Existing customers should export immediately, validate the archive, migrate active and required records through rehearsed mappings, reconcile operations, revoke integrations, and document deletion. The critical date is the one Freshteam confirms for the customer’s account, not a generic deadline copied from an internally inconsistent FAQ.