Google Business Profile manager: add, remove and regain access

To add a Google Business Profile manager, sign in at business.google.com, select More, then Business Profile settings, then People and access, then Add, enter the person's email address and choose Manager. They have access once they accept the invitation. The harder jobs are the ones around it: knowing who already has access, removing people who should not, and getting the profile back when someone else holds it.

Say Dean runs a two-van electrical firm in Sutton. His web designer set up the Google profile in 2019, using the designer's own Gmail address, and then moved on. The listing still brings in calls. But Dean can't reply to a bad review, change his hours over Christmas, or add the new van photos, because the only person with the keys is someone he last spoke to five years ago.

It's a common situation, and it's fixable. This guide covers owner and manager roles, adding and removing people, getting ownership back, duplicates, removing a profile and lost Google accounts. For claiming and verifying a new profile, see our guide to setting up your Google Business Profile.

Key Takeaways

• A Google Business Profile can have several owners but only one primary owner, and managers can do almost everything owners can except add or remove people and remove the profile.
• Anyone newly added as an owner or manager must wait seven days before they can remove other users, transfer primary ownership, or delete the profile, according to Google's help pages checked on 20 October 2026.
• When someone else owns your profile, Google's request access process gives the current owner three days to respond, and if they do not, a Claim or Verify option may appear, though Google says it is not always available.
• Removing a Google Business Profile from your account does not guarantee the business leaves Google Maps: customer reviews stay, and Google says the listing may still appear unless it is considered ineligible.
• Give an agency or helper manager access rather than ownership, because a manager cannot remove you from your own profile.

What is the difference between a Google Business Profile owner and manager?

An owner has full control of the profile, and a manager has almost the same access without the power over people. Google's page on managing owners and managers says managers cannot add or remove users and cannot remove the profile. Everything else, from editing hours to replying to reviews, both roles can do.

A profile can have several owners, but only one primary owner, who has a few extra powers.

What you want to do	Primary owner	Owner	Manager
Edit name, hours, phone number, services	Yes	Yes	Yes
Reply to reviews	Yes	Yes	Yes
Add posts and photos	Yes	Yes	Yes
Add or remove owners and managers	Yes	Yes	No
Change someone's role	Yes	Yes	No
Transfer primary ownership	Yes	No	No
Remove the profile content and managers	Yes	No	No

The last two rows come from Google's pages on transferring primary ownership and on removing a profile.

The practical rule is simple. The business owner should be primary owner, on an account the business controls. Staff, web designers and agencies should be managers.

How do you add a manager to your Google Business Profile?

You add a manager from the People and access screen, and it takes about two minutes if you are an owner. Plenty of people go looking for this: UK searches for "google business profile manager" averaged 2,900 a month over the year to September 2026, and reached 3,600 in September (DataForSEO, Google Ads data, pulled 20 October 2026). Google's steps, checked on 20 October 2026:

1. Go to your Business Profile at business.google.com.
2. Select More, then Business Profile settings, then People and access.
3. Select Add at the top left.
4. Enter the person's email address.
5. Under Access, choose Owner or Manager.
6. Select Invite.

The person has to accept the invitation before they can do anything, and you get an email when they do. If you sent it to the wrong address, find them under PENDING and select Cancel invitation. Two limits catch people out: Google Groups cannot be added as owners or managers, and you need owner access to add anyone at all.

If you can't add anyone, you're probably a manager yourself. Ask the owner, or follow the ownership section below.

Adding an agency as a manager

An agency needs the same thing as anyone else: an email invitation with manager access. When we start work for a business on one of our done-with-you programmes, manager access to the Google Business Profile is on the short list of things our contract says delivery stops without, alongside access to Search Console and the website. The access we ask for is manager access, because the business should keep ownership of its own listing.

Our self-serve plans work slightly differently. The first item on the setup list is Connect your Google Business Profile, where the owner or a manager signs in with Google and grants permission to manage the listing. The clock on our promised work only starts once the owner has finished those setup steps, so a profile nobody can sign in to holds up everything else.

If you want help that starts the day access is sorted, see how we keep local businesses found.

How do you remove a manager from your Google Business Profile?

You remove someone from the same screen, and only an owner can do it. Go to People and access, select the person, then select Remove person. Google emails them to say they have been removed.

Removing someone doesn't wipe their work: Google says their past replies, posts and other actions stay on the profile.

To change someone's role instead, for example to turn an owner into a manager:

1. Go to People and access.
2. Select the person.
3. Next to Access, select Edit.
4. Choose the new role and select Save.

If you want to leave a profile yourself, select your own name and then Stop managing and Confirm. A primary owner cannot do that until they have handed primary ownership to someone else.

Check the list once a year. Former staff and old agencies often still have full access.

How do you get ownership of a Google Business Profile someone else controls?

You use Google's request access process, which asks the current owner to let you in and gives them three days to answer. It covers an old web designer, an ex-employee, a previous owner or an agency holding the profile.

Google's page on requesting ownership of a Business Profile gives these steps for a business with a shop front or office:

1. Go to business.google.com/add.
2. Enter your business name and address.
3. Choose your business from the list. You will see the message "Someone else may manage this Business Profile".
4. Select Request access.
5. Fill in the form.
6. Select Submit.

Google notes that if you can't find a Claim this business or Own this business button, you may already be the owner.

What happens after you request access

Google emails you a confirmation, and the current owner is notified by email. From there, three things can happen:

What the owner does	What you get	Your next step
Approves	An approval email	Manage the profile
Denies	A rejection email	Suggest an edit to the profile, or appeal the decision
Does nothing for three days	No decision	Open the confirmation email, select View request, then Verify, if the option appears

Google says the claim option isn't always available, so don't count on it. You can check progress by signing in or through the link in the confirmation email.

Service-area businesses have a different route

Many trades travel to the customer and hide their address. Google's page says a service-area business with no shop or office should contact Google instead, typing "Transfer ownership of listing" in the Tell us what we can help with box and choosing Transfer ownership of listing as the issue.

Picture Sana, who bought a mobile dog-grooming business in Kent. The previous owner kept the Google account, and the listing has 90 reviews she doesn't want to lose. Starting a fresh listing would be quicker, but it would be a duplicate with no reviews, and duplicates cause their own problems.

How do you transfer primary ownership of a Google Business Profile?

You make another existing user the primary owner from People and access, and only the current primary owner can do it. The person must already be an owner or manager on the profile. If you are the only user, add them first and wait for them to accept.

Google's steps for a primary ownership transfer:

1. Go to your Business Profile at business.google.com.
2. Select More, then Business Profile settings, then People and access.
3. Select the person you want to make primary owner.
4. Next to Access, select Edit.
5. Select Primary owner, then Save.

The seven-day wait

New owners and managers cannot do everything straight away. For the first seven days after joining a profile, Google says they cannot delete or undelete it, remove other owners or managers, or transfer primary ownership, and they get an error if they try. An existing owner who tries to make a brand-new user primary owner during that week also gets an error.

So when a business changes hands, plan for a week: add the new person, wait seven days, then transfer.

How do you find and deal with a duplicate Google Business Profile?

A duplicate is a second listing for the same business, and Google says a profile it considers a duplicate won't show on Search or Maps. Its page on resolving duplicate profiles lists three reasons a profile may be marked as one: a verified profile already exists for the business, several profiles share the same address, or several profiles exist for the same business offering different services.

If you manage your profile through Business Profile Manager, Google's Merchant Center help shows where flagged duplicates appear. Select Businesses, switch the filter at the top right from All to Duplicate, and open the flagged profile. It shows View original if you can manage the original, or Request access if you cannot.

What to do depends on which listing you control:

• You created the duplicate by mistake. Remove it. Google says this does not affect your verified listing, but warns that "all content and linked managers will be removed", so check you have the right one first.
• Someone else verified the original. Do not keep building up the duplicate. Request access to the original, using the process above.
• Two listings for one business both show on Maps. Ask Google to merge them by reporting it as a suggestion on Google Maps. The profiles must represent the same business with the same details, and Google says that after a merge "their reviews are combined, but replies to reviews may be lost".

Google says duplicate profiles are against its policies, and our guide to a suspended Google Business Profile lists them as one cause of suspension, so tidy them up early.

How do you delete a Google Business Profile?

Google does not offer a delete button that wipes the business from Maps. What it offers is Remove Business Profile, which removes the profile's content and its managers from your account. Only the primary owner can do it, and new owners must wait seven days first.

Google's steps for removing a profile:

1. Go to business.google.com and sign in to the account linked to the profile.
2. Select More, then Business Profile settings.
3. Select Remove Business Profile, then Remove profile content and managers.
4. If the business has shut for good, turn on Mark your business as permanently closed.
5. Select Continue, then Remove, then Done.

Closing, removing and requesting removal are different things

Option	Who can use it	What happens
Remove profile content and managers	The primary owner	Posts, photos, videos and review replies by owners and managers are deleted for good. Reviews from customers stay. The business may still appear on Search and Maps
Mark your business as permanently closed	The primary owner, during removal	The listing slowly drops out of search results, then is removed
Request removal in Google Maps	Anyone signed in to Google	Google reviews it and may take the listing down if it never existed or is ineligible

The third route is for listings you do not own, such as a fake one or one for a business that never existed at that address. In Google Maps, select the business, then Suggest an edit, then Place is closed or not here, pick the option that fits, and select Submit. Google's page on requesting removal from Search and Maps says you may get an email asking follow-up questions.

Think hard before removing a profile for a business that is still trading. Removal is permanent, affects every owner and manager, and the content can't be recovered. To fix a listing that has gone missing instead, start with why a business is not showing on Google.

What if you have lost access to the Google account that owns the profile?

Recover the Google account first, because that is the only key Google recognises. Google's account recovery page walks you through a set of questions at accounts.google.com/signin/recovery, and says "Wrong guesses won't kick you out of the account recovery process".

Google's account recovery tips suggest three things that help:

• Use a computer, phone or tablet you often sign in on.
• Use the same browser you usually use.
• Be somewhere you usually sign in, such as home or work.

Two warnings from the same pages. First, "you can't call Google for help to sign into your account", and Google says it does not work with any service that claims to provide account or password support, so ignore anyone offering to recover it for a fee. Second, if the profile sits on a work email that your web designer or IT person set up, the normal recovery steps might not work, and Google points you to the account's administrator instead.

If the account can't be recovered, treat the profile as owned by someone else and request access. That's Dean's route too. If his firm has no shop or office for customers to visit, Google's page sends him to Google support with a "Transfer ownership of listing" request rather than the three-day request access form.

How we handle access when a new client starts

We cannot start without access. Manager access to the Google Business Profile is one of the items our contract says delivery stops without, and getting access in place is the first step of our onboarding, in days one to three. When someone else set the profile up, that job takes longer.

Take a cleaning company owner who thinks the profile is on her Gmail. In fact a former office manager set it up on his, and she isn't on it at all. That means a request access and a three-day wait, then the seven days Google gives every new owner before they can remove other users.

Check this before you hire anyone, and the first fortnight goes on the work instead.

Our Review Management service needs the same connection. The owner or a manager signs in with Google and grants permission to manage the listing, and nothing can be sent until that is done, because the requests rely on the profile's review link. If you want reviews asked for and replies drafted once access is in place, see how Review Management works.

Check who has access today

Ten minutes in People and access now saves weeks later:

1. Sign in at business.google.com with the account you think owns the profile, and open People and access.
2. Check that you, or a business account you control, are the primary owner.
3. Remove anyone who has left, and turn any agency or helper who is an owner into a manager.
4. If you are not on the list, start a request access today, because the three-day clock only starts when you ask.
5. Search Google Maps for your business name and look for a second listing at your address.

Once access is sorted, our guides on getting a Google review link and how local businesses get found on Google cover what to do next. And if you'd rather hand the profile and the pages to someone else, see how we keep local businesses found.