Applies to Business editions, Essentials editions, Android Enterprise, Chrome Enterprise Upgrade, and Chrome Enterprise Core that you signed up for with a business email address
If you signed up for a Business edition with a Gmail address, go here instead.
If you're the owner or IT admin for your organization's domain name, you can unlock additional admin features, such as the ability to create user accounts, manage user profiles, and control password strength. Unlock features by verifying you own your domain.
You can verify your domain:
- After signing up for a Google service using email verification, including Google Workspace Business editions, Google Workspace Essentials Starter, Android Enterprise, Chrome Enterprise, or Chrome Enterprise Core, and trying it out with your team.
or
- After someone else at your organization signs up for a Google service using email verification. In this case, when you verify your domain, you take over management of the Google service for your organization.
Unlocks more features
When you verify your domain:
- You take full administrative control of all user accounts in your organization. You can create user accounts, manage user profiles and security settings, and more.
- Get advanced features for Drive, Meet, and Chat.
- (Business editions) Get Gmail and Calendar apps.
- (Essentials editions) You can switch to another Google Workspace edition to get Gmail.
Compare features in email-verified and domain-verified accounts
Before you begin
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Be aware of the following
After you verify your domain, other teams at your organization will no longer be able to sign up for a Google service—such as Essentials Starter or Chrome Enterprise—on their own using email verification. As the administrator for your organization's Google service, you'll control who can use it and which features they can use.
If other teams at your organization signed up for a Google service using email verification, they'll be merged with your team when you complete domain verification. You'll then manage one Google account for your organization.
Your organization (team) needs to have all the subscriptions the other teams are using. If any are missing, you'll need to add them to your organization's account during the merge process.
For example, if you're taking over a domain and will use it with Google Cloud Identity, existing users will lose access to certain Google Workspace services, Workspace capabilities, and their data if you remove the Workspace subscriptions added during takeover.
Complete the following
If your organization's Google account has any suspended subscriptions, you need to renew or cancel them before you start the domain verification process. The Billing page in your Admin console shows the status of your subscriptions.
To unlock features, you need to upgrade to Enterprise Essentials or Enterprise Essentials Plus. You can do this before you start the domain verification process. Otherwise, you'll be prompted to upgrade to a paid edition after you verify your domain.
For details, go to:
How to verify domain ownership
To unlock features for your Google service, you need to verify that you own your organization's domain.
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To verify your domain with Google, you must have:
Follow these steps to verify you own your domain.
I'm already an admin for a Google service
If you have access to your Google Admin console:
-
Sign in with an
administrator account to the Google Admin console.
If you aren’t using an administrator account, you can’t access the Admin console.
-
- Click Manage domains > Verify domain. Then follow the steps in the verification tool.
Important: If a message appears that says you can’t verify your domain, go to If you can't verify your domain later on this page.
- When it's time to verify your domain, you'll be asked to sign in to your domain host. You'll get a verification record to add to your domain’s DNS settings. Or, you can add a tag or file to your website’s files.
Click below for step-by-step instructions to add the verification record for your host. Also find generic steps if your host isn't listed.
GO TO VERIFICATION STEPS FOR YOUR DOMAIN HOST
Important: The verification record doesn’t affect your existing website or email.
- After you add the verification record to your DNS settings, you'll tell the verification tool to look for this record. After a few minutes (though it might take up to 1 hour), you’ll get a confirmation message that your domain is verified.
- (If you're using Essentials Starter edition) Follow the instructions to upgrade your subscription to Enterprise Essentials or Enterprise Essentials Plus within 8 days; otherwise, domain verification will be canceled.
- If there are other teams using an email-verified Google account in your domain, follow the on-screen instructions to merge the teams with yours.
For details about merging teams and the recommended actions to take before and after you complete domain verification, go to Merging teams after domain verification later on this page.
Once you complete all on-screen steps to unlock additional features, you can start using your domain-verified Google service.
If you were using Essentials Starter and single sign-on (SSO) with Microsoft (OIDC) was turned on, you'll need to set a password for your Google Account before you can use your new Google service.
I'm taking control from another admin
If you don't have access to the Google Admin console:
- Go to the sign-up page for your service:
- Sign up using your email address at the domain you're verifying.
Use an address where you can get mail.
- Follow the instructions in the section I’m already an admin for a Google service previously on this page.
Set up billing to avoid suspension: After you verify your domain, you have 15 days to set up billing. If billing was already set up, you must set it up again. Otherwise, your account will be suspended.
-
Sign in with a
super administrator account to the Google Admin console.
If you aren’t using a super administrator account, you can’t complete these steps.
-
- Under Subscriptions, next to your Google service—such as Enterprise Essentials, Business Standard, or Chrome Enterprise Upgrade)—click Set up billing.
- Follow the instructions to set up billing.
For details, go to one of the following:
Merging teams after domain verification
If at least one other team in your domain has an email-verified Google account, you’ll need to merge your team account with the other teams' accounts before you can unlock additional features and start managing user accounts. To merge teams—called organizations in the Admin console—follow the on-screen instructions that appear after you complete domain verification.
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You might need to complete these tasks:
You might need to complete these tasks:
- Grant administrator privileges—The team administrators for the merging organizations lose their administrative privileges. If needed, add back administrative privileges to their accounts. For details, see Make a user an admin.
- (Essentials Starter) If any teams sign in with their Microsoft account using SSO, do one of following—
- If your organization's users use single sign-on (SSO), inform users in the other merging organizations that they will also need to sign in with their Microsoft account.
Note: Once your verify your domain, you'll be a super administrator, so your account will no longer use SSO. This means you'll be prompted to set a password for your Google Account before you can access your new Google service
- If the other merging teams use SSO but your team doesn't, inform users in the merging teams that they will need to set a password the next time they sign in to Essentials.
- (Google Workspace) Migrate developers' Chat apps—If merging organizations have developed Chat apps, they might not work properly after domain verification. To keep their apps working, developers might need to migrate them to a Google Cloud project. For details, see Migrate your Google Chat app.
If you can't verify your domain
If the following message appears in the Admin console when you try to verify your domain, domain verification isn't available using the Admin console.
Your Google subscription doesn’t yet allow you to take over management of multiple teams at once if they're not all using the same Google service. Your subscription version will be upgraded to allow you to do this in an upcoming release.
To manage the other teams now, you can verify your domain by merging the other teams with yours, as follows:
- Ask the other teams’ admins to cancel their email-verified Google service subscription. For more information, see Cancel Essentials. Make sure these admins:
- Choose the option to let users keep their data (if available)
- Also delete their team’s Google service account
If you don’t know who the other team admins are: Contact Google Workspace Support by filling out this form.
- Verify domain ownership, by following the instructions earlier on this page.
- Add the other teams’ users to your Google service account, by following these steps.
After you verify your domain and merge teams
- Users are notified—Existing users get an email telling them that their Google accounts have a new administrator.
- (Essentials Starter) You'll lose access to the Team dashboard—Instead, you'll perform all management tasks from your Google Admin console, where more business features become available.
- You become the sole admin for users—Any previous admins lose access to management controls, such as the Team dashboard (Essentials only) or Admin console.
- Users might lose access to Chat spaces—Users in any teams that merged with yours can no longer access the Chat spaces, including messages and tasks, they used with their original team.
Manage your organization's domain-verified Google account
As a super admin for your organization's domain-verified Google account, you can manage all aspects of your service, including creating user accounts, configuring security settings, creating policies, and more.
Learn more about managing user accounts:
If you're using Enterprise Essentials or Enterprise Essentials Plus, learn more about:
Questions
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Before we can unlock identity management features for any organization, we need to know they own their domain. This helps prevent anyone from using Google services with someone else's business identity.
A domain is what comes after www. in web addresses. This is often your organization's name, followed by .com. An example is yourbusiness.com.
To check if your domain has been verified:
-
Sign in with an
administrator account to the Google Admin console.
If you aren’t using an administrator account, you can’t access the Admin console.
-
- If you don't see a message asking you to verify your domain, your domain has been verified.
Adding your verification record takes about 10 minutes. It can take up to 1 hour for us to confirm you added the record, but it usually happens more quickly.
Google, Google Workspace, and related marks and logos are trademarks of Google LLC. All other company and product names are trademarks of the companies with which they are associated.
