How to Add a Manager to Your Google Business Profile

The most common problem I run into with a new client isn't a password. It's that nobody knows who owns the Google listing.

Somebody set it up. Maybe a previous web company, maybe a marketing agency, maybe a family member in 2017. The business shows up on Google Maps, the hours are wrong, and there's no obvious way to fix them. That's a worse position to be in than a shared password, and it's avoidable.

Google Business Profile has a proper way to let someone else work on your listing. It takes about a minute, and it's the single most important one to get right, because your listing is often where more customers see you than your website.

Why you shouldn't just send your Google password

Your Google account isn't one thing. It's your email, your files, your photos, your calendar, and every other Google service you've ever signed in to. Handing over that password to get someone into a business listing is the widest possible door for the narrowest possible job.

It's also worse here than it is elsewhere. If the person needs your password, then every time they sign in from a new device Google flags it, emails you a security alert, and asks for a verification code you now have to relay. You'll spend more time on that than on the actual work.

And adding someone properly takes less time than typing the password did.

Which role to give

Business Profile has three levels, and only one of them is right for someone you hired.

Primary owner. One per profile. Full control, including deleting the listing and handing primary ownership to someone else. This should be you, permanently.

Owner. Can do nearly everything, including adding and removing other people. An Owner can remove you.

Manager. Can update your business information, post updates, reply to reviews, and see how the profile is performing. Can't add or remove people, and can't delete the listing.

Give a web designer or marketer Manager. It covers the entire job. Someone doing local SEO work on your listing needs to edit your categories, hours, services, photos, and posts, and Manager covers all of it.

Do not make a contractor an Owner, and never transfer primary ownership. Not because anyone's likely to act in bad faith, but because getting primary ownership back from a company you've stopped working with is the single most painful recovery in local search. Which brings us to the situation half the people reading this are actually in.

If someone else already owns your listing

If a former agency or web company holds ownership and you can't reach them, or they're slow-walking it, you're not stuck. You request access through Google directly from the profile. The current owner gets a window to respond, and if they let it lapse, you can continue with a claim.

Two things about that process. It's slow, measured in days rather than minutes. And it moves faster if you start it the moment you notice, instead of the week you urgently need your holiday hours changed.

The reason to care about the role you hand out today is that it's the difference between this being a one-click removal later and a multi-week process with Google support.

How to add a Manager

1. Sign in to the Google account that owns the profile.
2. Search your business name on Google, or open your business in the Google Maps app. Your management options appear directly in the results when you're signed in as an owner.
3. Open your Business Profile settings.
4. Go to the section for people and access.
5. Click Add, enter your designer's email address, and choose Manager.
6. Send the invitation.

They'll get an email and accept from there. Use whatever email address they ask you to use, because it has to be the one attached to their Google account. Sending the invitation to the wrong address is the most common reason this appears not to work.

How to remove someone

Same screen. Open the people and access section, select the person, and remove them.

Anything they created stays. Posts they published, replies they wrote to reviews, photos they uploaded, all of it remains on your profile, because it belongs to the business rather than to them. That's what you want, and it's worth knowing so the removal doesn't feel risky.

Do this when a project ends. If someone's managing your listing on an ongoing basis, leave them. If they finished a one-time job three months ago, take them off.

What a Manager can't do

This is the part worth being clear about, because people reasonably assume Google access is all-or-nothing:

• No access to your Google account itself. Not Gmail, not Drive, not Photos, not Calendar.
• Not Google Analytics, not Search Console, not Google Ads. Those are separate services with separate invitations, and being a Business Profile Manager grants none of them.
• Can't remove you or add anyone else.
• Can't delete your listing.
• Can't transfer the profile to another owner.

A Manager can change what customers see about your business on Google, which is a real permission and the whole point. Beyond that, nothing.

The short version

Your Google Business Profile is probably your most valuable listing on the internet, and it's the one small businesses lose control of most often. Keep primary ownership in your own Google account, add the people you hire as Managers, and remove them when the work is finished.

If you want the same approach across your domain, your analytics, and your social accounts, I wrote up how to share access without sharing passwords for every service I typically ask clients about.

Verified against Google Business Profile on October 20, 2026. Google reorganizes these screens more often than any other service in this series. If the labels don't match, search Google's help center for "add owners and managers" and you'll land in the right place.