Can't log in to Admin Console

[cawmi90]

Hello, I need help logging into the admin console. Years back I acquired a personal domain name and somehow set it up with Google Workspace so that I could use Gmail to answer emails sent to my address (e.g. contact@mypersonaldomainname.com). It has been so long that I don't remember exactly how I set it up. Now I am receiving alerts from Google that I need to set up billing for Google Workspace Business Starter.

OK, no problem. I try to log in to Google Workspace Admin Console using the email address at my custom domain name. When I do that, the account chooser says "choose an account" and the only one that is listed is the same account I tried to sign in with. At the top it says:

"Sign in with an administrator account
To sign in to admin.google.com, use an administrator account for a managed Google service, such as Google Workspace or Cloud Identity. Learn more about Google accounts"

I can continue selecting the same account and the same exact thing happens. I can't figure out what my administrator account could be if it isn't the contact@ email address with the domain name I'm already using. I haven't set up any other accounts to my knowledge. And if I try using my personal gmail.com address (which the billing notifications are sent to) it does the same thing and only offers the email at my custom domain name.

I need to set up Business Starter within 14 days or I will apparently lose access to my personal email address that I use for career purposes. I've tried everything I can think of to sign in and tried the suggestions at this post (https://support.google.com/a/answer/6335621) and none have worked. I also can't contact support because that requires a paid membership. I am very concerned about losing access to a personal email address because Google makes it impossible to sign into. I am nervous about paying for Workspace if I will have this same issue in the future. Is there any way I can contact someone who can help? Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you.

[cawmi90]

Just to update, I chatted with sales support who told me to call 1-877-355-5787. When I call that number it asks for a Workspace support PIN. Of course, I can't get to the PIN because it is part of the Admin Console which I can't log into. Thanks in advance for any help!

[arappmem]

I am in the same situation.  This is the most infuriating thing to happen and is disrupting my whole family.   We have all lost access to our personal emails and one of our family members has patients that reach out to her personal email when she is out of town.   This is hampering my job search efforts as well.  I can't imagine Google isn't losing a lot of users over this.  

[cawmi90 · Accepted solution]

Sorry to hear you and your family are in the same situation.

I think I found a solution today. Hopefully it will be helpful. I landed on a form you can submit here: https://support.google.com/a/contact/recovery_form

I used the updated form that page links to (where it mentions G Suite legacy edition) which asked me to add a DNS record to my domain name to confirm ownership. I did that through my registrar (GoDaddy) and the Google Admin Toolbox confirmed the change a few minutes later. By this evening I had an email from Google support saying they confirmed ownership of the domain name and will make my account the Super Administrator within 72 hours.

They also emailed the existing Workspace admin (me) to let me know the Super Administrator role would be passed on to my other email. The email to the existing admin came to an address I didn't remember setting up on my domain all those years ago and forwarding to my main gmail. I was able to recover the password to that and get to the billing page for Workplace Starter.

[Jwalsh73]

The big problem with the GSuite legacy form is that it requires an ACTIVE email associated with the GSuite account. Our account has been suspended, so we don't have access to any active gmail accounts associated with it right now. Very, very frustrating. 

[Custombuiltfilm]

@Jwalsh73 we are having the same issue. Please let me know if you were able to resolve and how?

[cawmi90]

@Custombuiltfilm@Jwalsh73 Did you try submitting the older version of the form I linked to? https://support.google.com/a/contact/recovery_form Hopefully you can get a response. The emails to me came from noreply_cloud_support@google.com so you could try emailing them directly. Despite the email saying noreply, they did tell me to reply if I had any questions.

[fallout_grl]

Go onto twitter and comment under one of their recent posts Google Workspace Support @AskWorkspace 

I received a response from them within 5 mins!! Send them a private message with your support reference # and they will check with their team and confirm they received your request to be made admin. 

 They told me that if you don't have any active emails from your domain you can still add the suspended email address (the one you want promoted to admin) to the request on the Google Admin Toolbox. Once the process has been completed , the suspended email will be promoted to admin but this can take 3-5 days. Basically then we have to keep trying to log in as admin during the 3-5 days until it gives us access.. Farcical 

[sallyfienup]

This is my problem - what did you end up doing? I tried to respond to the help ticket with a different email (my personal gmail) but I'm not sure if the bot will know not to respond to the shut-down email.

[fallout_grl]

Can I ask which email addr the google support contacted you on? when I put in our request to change the super admin it said to use an active email addr BUT would only allow me to use one of the email addrs from our domain (all of which are suspended until we can change admin!) 

so I'm just wondering which email they are going to contact me on to let me know about my request to change the admin. I wonder will they contact my back up email that's linked to my work email?! 

[cawmi90]

In my case I had a working email address at the domain still, and the super admin was a different email (on the same domain) that I forgot ever setting up. They contacted me on the working one I supplied.

So short answer, not sure where they will email you. Maybe you could try emailing them at noreply_cloud_support@google.com to ask. Despite the “noreply” all the emails I got were from that address and said to reply if I had any questions. I hope someone can help you sort it out. Good luck!!

[fallout_grl]

Thanks for the quick reply! I emailed that no reply email addr yesterday so fingers crossed they reply. Day 3 of no emails 😞 

[sallyfienup]

How many days did it take for a response? It's been about 36 hours for me.

[cawmi90]

@sallyfienup- if you are asking me (I'm not sure) - the entire process took ~6-8 hours from when I found the form and updated my DNS records to prove ownership. That was probably because I had the existing Admin account and just didn't realize. Since I could reset the existing Admin account's password I could take control instead of waiting the ~72 hours for admin privileges to be transferred. You may want to try what @fallout_grl suggested with reaching out to them on Twitter

[Volunteer]

That's all well and good, but I'm a volunteer at a Chamber of Commerce and we're working through the DNS ownership process to reset the Admin, but while that's taking place, Google has suspended email access to the Chamber! They have an invoice for Feb 2023 they're willing to pay but can't without Admin console access. Workspace Technical Support hides and Sales is powerless. Google should consider that this simple 2-account customer has 460 local businesses as members who have been receiving an error message on all emails to the Chamber since Thursday. 'Sorry. Experiencing Google Workspace Issues' is not a very strategic message...

[Stevopiwo]

I seem to be in the same situation as other posters. All domain name accounts are suspended, causing all kinds of mayhem for me and my family. I have applied for my suspended domain mail account to be promoted to super admin status, using Google Admin Toolbox, and am now in 72 hour purgatory waiting to see if this is possible with a suspended account. My de facto administrator account to date turned out to be a different @gmail.com account which, having a gmail suffix and not my domain suffix, cannot be used to log in as an administrator on Workspace 😬

Anyway, now that I know that I am not alone, I will post my outcome here when my 72 hours is up.

[fallout_grl]

any joy yet

[Stevopiwo]

I'm afraid not. I am now just over 72hours since my request was acknowledged, I read elsewhere that the waiting time is 3-5 days. 

[fallout_grl]

ye the google support on twitter told me 3-5 days but I was hoping once the 72 hours was up you might get lucky 😉 I'm at 68 hours 

[Stevopiwo]

Success!

It took five days in the end. During that period, I kept trying through https://support.google.com/a/answer/2855120 and clicking the 'personal use' button, but was faced with a 'you need an administrator account' block. Five days after promoting my (suspended) account to super admin status, it all changed. I was directed to a workspace page where I needed to answer a few questions (hit 'set up later' when it asks about billing), then, after the questions,  look again for the option 'this account is for personal use' and click. Bingo. Crack open the champagne 😁

[fallout_grl]

Success for me too! On day 4 . I got an email @ 9pm today to my backup/personal email account to confirm I had been made super admin and I was able to log on immediately and upgrade our accounts / set up a billing option. Once that was done our accounts were taken off suspension 

[Stevopiwo]

Here is a summary of the process I took to restore my account, just in case anybody else logs on seeking advice. It was a personal Gmail account but with a non-gmail.com ending, suspended on 12 September 2022 because (I found out later) the bots at Google assumed it was a business account.

First, you need to promote one of your Gmail accounts with the domain ending (not a gmail.com ending) to super admin using this form: https://toolbox.googleapps.com/apps/recovery/form

This form works even if the account is suspended. You will need the username and password to your domain hosting site to do this (the GoDaddy/OVH/HostGator kind of companies that you pay annually to host your domain). Follow the instructions on the link to add a CNAME or TXT to your domain - I didn't have a clue what that meant, but just followed along blindly and got there in the end. After this, the Google recovery form will be stuck for a while during the verification step, I clicked the 'check again' button every half an hour or so until, after about three hours, it took me to the next stage. You have two choices: I chose the first option (Request User Promotion). It says this process will take 72 hours - in my case, it took five days.

You will not know when your account has been promoted so you need to check regularly. I used this form: https://support.google.com/a/answer/2855120 and clicked on 'I used my account for personal use'. For four days, I was faced with a 'you need an administrator account' blocking screen. On the fifth day, my click took me to a previously unseen workspace page, where I needed to answer a few questions (I hit 'set up later' when it asked about billing), then, after the questions, looked again for the option 'this account is for personal use' and clicked. Bingo.

I am really not an expert in such things so forgive me if my technical jargon is inaccurate, but that is how I recovered my suspended Gmail legacy account.

Steve

[tyangus]

mysteriously, I can log in to all my gmails, but I received a notice that my credit card for my domain (and associated emails) has expired and I have until april 18th to update in the workspace admin console. I can login to that domain's email, but I can't login to the admin console. There are only one of two emails that it could be and I've tried both. I have a circular error loop witht he message shown attached. I set up a long time ago with blogger/blogspot, then it was Godaddy, and now Google? going to lose my blog and emails if I can't get logged in to update !!!help!

[icrew]

Check out all the various options for recovering admin access to your Google Workspace account at https://support.google.com/a/answer/33561?hl=en.

There are a number of options there including getting in touch with support as well as technical methods to prove to Google that you own your domain name and should be allowed to access the Workspace instance.

Hope that helps,

Ian

[christelman]

@tyangus Have you been able to resolve the issue? I have the same problem. My email accouns has been suspended, and it's the admin account associated to the workspace. So I am stuck at the same step you were: unable to log in to the admin space, and unable to communicate with google via that email after proving I am domain owner.

[Adeel]

My Workspace admin account was suspended suddenly, I was the super admin of the account and I have been reaching out to them on the ticket, email, twitter, and FB yet it has been 15 days and they say we are still working on it.

This is ridiculous never expected such a poor service from Google. 😡