Stuck in a loop admin.google.com

September 13, 2022 8:31 AM

How can I even google account? I set up my domain, example.com a long time ago to use free google workspace, which is going away.

when I log in as [e-mail] who is as far as I know is the only user, I get this error:

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

When I say "help help what is the user name to admin example.com" it loops me through two factor authentication and tells me to log in as [e-mail] and then I get that error again.

I've got about a week before I lose all email access and workspace access if I don't set up billing.

posted by tilde to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

Not answering your question directly, but Google backtracked and Workspace is retaining a free tier for personal users.

This support page suggests that with proof of domain ownership you can promote [e-mail] to be an admin which might reset things.

You could also try entering [e-mail] and any other email addresses you use as recovery email addresses into Google account recovery. It's possible there's an admin account you forgot about with [e-mail] as the recovery address.
posted by Busy Old Fool at 8:46 AM on September 13, 2022

Best answer: This Workspace identity recovery form might help you too.
posted by Busy Old Fool at 8:48 AM on September 13, 2022

The old way to get to your admin account was to set the URL to google.com/a/example.com and use your username ([e-mail]), if you're admin level. Maybe try that?
posted by JoeZydeco at 10:05 AM on September 13, 2022

When I substitute my Workspace domain into google.com/a/example.com I get a 404.
posted by Busy Old Fool at 3:03 AM on September 14, 2022

Response by poster: Well, trying the workspace identity recovery option ... thanks, all. the google.com/a/example.com 404'd a while back but I appreciate the reminder to look in my passwordfile for that designation!
posted by tilde at 4:58 AM on September 15, 2022

Response by poster: Turns out I am one of those people who put things in a safe place and then immediately forgets where that safe place is. In this example, the safe place was setting up an alternative email address to be the admin for the site.

So, I did the reset for that, and was able to set up a billing with 47 hours to spare.

I’ve gone through this exercise for two family websites, and now two of my pet project websites. If there is a free way to do this anymore I don’t apparently qualify. I’ve looked.
posted by tilde at 8:27 PM on September 18, 2022

Glad to hear you got it all sorted in the end.

For anyone else reading this question who wants to apply to keep their personal domain on Workspace, this page is the one you need to visit.
posted by Busy Old Fool at 1:32 AM on September 19, 2022