Table of Contents
To give someone access to your Google Business Profile, sign in with the account that owns the listing, search your exact business name on Google, click the three dots next to your business name, then choose Business Profile settings, then People and access, then Add. Type in their email address, set the access level to Manager, and click Invite. The whole thing takes about two minutes.
That’s the answer. The rest of this page is for the parts that trip people up: which access level to pick, what to do when the menu doesn’t look like the instructions, and why the shortcut most business owners reach for first is the one that causes real damage later.
How to Give Someone Access to Your Google Business Profile, Step by Step
Google moves buttons around more often than it announces, so the labels below are what you’ll see today. The destination never changes: a screen called People and access.
- Sign in as the owner. Use the Google account that was signed in when the business was first verified. If you’re not sure which account that is, start anyway, step four won’t appear if you’re on the wrong one.
- Find your profile. Search your exact business name on Google, or go to business.google.com. Your profile panel appears at the top of the results with buttons like Edit profile, Promote, and Read reviews.
- Click the three vertical dots next to your business name. On some screens this is labeled More instead of showing an icon.
- Choose Business Profile settings. This opens the settings menu for the listing itself, not for your Google account.
- Click People and access. You’ll see everyone who currently has access, which is often the first time an owner discovers a former employee or a previous agency is still on the list.
- Click the blue Add button at the top left of the People and access screen.
- Enter their email address and, under Access, choose Manager rather than Owner.
- Click Invite. They’ll get an email invitation and have to accept it before the access is live.
One thing worth knowing before you send it: the invitation sits unaccepted until the other person clicks it. If you send an invite and nothing seems to happen, that’s usually all it is. The invite is waiting in an inbox, not lost.
Owner vs. Manager: Which One to Give
Google offers two levels, and the difference matters more than the names suggest.
An Owner has full control. They can edit everything, and they can also add and remove other people and delete the profile entirely. That last part is the one to sit with. If you make someone an Owner and the relationship ends badly, they have the technical ability to lock you out of the listing your business depends on.
A Manager can do nearly everything an Owner can, meaning edit your business information, post updates, upload photos, manage messaging, and respond to reviews. What they cannot do is add or remove people or delete the profile. In Google’s own words, managers have “mostly the same access to the profile as owners,” with that one exception.
For an agency, a marketing employee, a contractor, or anyone else doing the work on your behalf, Manager is the correct level. It’s not a lesser courtesy version. It’s the level that lets someone do the entire job while leaving you the only person who can decide who else gets in.
Any marketing partner who insists on Owner access to run your listing should be able to tell you exactly which task requires it. In our experience, there usually isn’t one.
Why You Should Never Just Share Your Password Instead
Here’s the shortcut almost every business owner reaches for first: just text them the Gmail login. It feels faster, and it is, right up until it isn’t.
Your Google password isn’t a key to your business listing. It’s a key to your email, your Drive, your photos, your YouTube channel, your saved payment methods, and any other Google service you’ve ever signed into with that account. Sharing it to solve a Business Profile problem is like handing over your whole keyring because someone needs to get into the storage shed.
It also breaks in practical, non-hypothetical ways. Two-factor authentication will block the other person at login, so now they’re calling you for a code every time they need to post. There’s no record of who changed what, so if something on the listing goes wrong, there’s no way to trace it. And when you eventually change that password, you’ve silently cut off access without meaning to.
Proper access takes two minutes and none of that happens. Every action is attributed to a person, you can revoke it in three clicks, and your other accounts stay yours.
If You Can’t Find “People and Access”
Three things cause this, in roughly this order of likelihood.
You’re signed into the wrong Google account. Most people have two or three, a personal Gmail, a work address, maybe an old one from a previous business. Check which one you’re actually signed in as, up in the top right corner, and switch if it isn’t the account that verified the business.
You have Manager access, not Owner. Managers can’t add other people. That’s the entire distinction. If you’re a manager and you need someone else added, the Owner has to do it.
Google changed the menu. The buttons genuinely do move. If the path in this article doesn’t match what’s on your screen, look for anything labeled settings and hunt for People and access underneath it. The screen name has been stable even when the route to it hasn’t.
If You’re Not the Owner (And Nobody Knows Who Is)
This one comes up constantly, and it’s a genuinely frustrating position: the business changed hands, or the person who set up the listing left years ago, and now nobody can get into a profile that’s actively showing up in search results with your name on it.
Google has a process for this. You can request ownership through the profile itself, which sends a notification to whoever currently holds it. They have a window to respond. If they don’t, you can be granted ownership, though the timeline isn’t quick and Google will ask you to verify the business again.
The important thing is that this is solvable, and it’s worth solving before it becomes urgent. An unclaimed or misowned listing is one of the more common reasons a real business stops showing up on Google while newer competitors appear above them.
How to Remove Access Later
Same screen, and it takes about ten seconds. Go back to People and access, click the person you want to remove, and select Remove.
This is worth doing as a routine cleanup, not just when a relationship ends. Open that screen right now and look at who’s on it. Most businesses that have been around a few years have at least one name on that list they don’t recognize, or a former employee’s personal Gmail that never got cleared out when they left. Nobody thinks about it, because the screen is buried four clicks deep and nothing prompts you to check.
What Giving Access Actually Changes
Adding a manager doesn’t change who owns the business or the listing. It doesn’t transfer anything, cost anything, or affect how your profile ranks. It’s a permission, not a handover, and you can undo it whenever you want.
What it does change is who can act on the listing without going through you. That’s the real value. A Google Business Profile is not a set-and-forget asset, it needs current hours, fresh photos, posted updates, and prompt responses to reviews to keep performing. Review recency in particular carries real weight in local rankings now. When every one of those small actions requires an email to the owner and a wait for a reply, they simply stop happening, and the listing goes quiet.
That’s usually what someone is actually asking for when they ask for access. Not control. The ability to do the work on the day it needs doing.
If you’re handing access to us and want the steps in front of you while you click, we keep a plain, single-page version of this at the ready, ask and we’ll send it. And if you’re not sure your listing is pulling its weight in the first place, our local SEO work starts with exactly this kind of audit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Sign in with the Google account that owns the listing, then search your exact business name on Google or go to business.google.com. Click the three vertical dots next to your business name, choose Business Profile settings, then People and access. Click the blue Add button, enter the person’s email address, choose Manager under Access, and click Invite. They will receive an email invitation and must accept it before the access becomes active. The whole process takes about two minutes and does not affect who owns the business or the listing.
A Manager can do nearly everything an Owner can, including editing business information, posting updates, uploading photos, managing messaging, and responding to reviews. The difference is that Managers cannot add or remove other people, and cannot delete the profile. Owners can do both. For an agency, employee, or contractor working on your listing, Manager is the correct level, because it allows the full scope of the work while keeping you as the only person who controls who else has access.
In almost all cases, no. Manager access lets an agency perform every task involved in managing a listing, including edits, posts, photos, and review responses. Owner access additionally allows them to add or remove users and delete the profile entirely, which creates real risk if the relationship ends badly. If an agency requires Owner access, ask them to name the specific task that needs it. Granting Manager access first and upgrading later if a genuine need appears is the safer sequence.
There are three common causes. First, you may be signed into the wrong Google account, so check the account in the top right corner and switch to the one that verified the business. Second, you may have Manager access rather than Owner access, and Managers cannot add or remove people. Third, Google periodically changes its menu layout, so the exact path may differ from written instructions. The screen name “People and access” has stayed consistent, so look for it beneath any settings menu.
No. Your Google password grants access to Gmail, Drive, Photos, YouTube, saved payment methods, and every other Google service tied to that account, not just your Business Profile. Sharing it also breaks in practice, because two-factor authentication blocks the other person at login, no actions are attributed to individual users, and changing your password silently revokes their access. Adding someone as a Manager takes about two minutes, keeps an audit trail, and can be revoked in three clicks.
Go to your Business Profile settings, open People and access, click the person you want to remove, and select Remove. Only Owners can remove people. It is worth checking this screen periodically rather than only when a relationship ends, since many businesses find former employees or previous agencies still listed years later. The screen is several clicks deep and nothing prompts you to review it, so stale access tends to accumulate unnoticed.
