Google Business Profile: How to Add and Remove Managers

How to Add and Remove Managers on Your Google Business Profile: the short answer is that only an owner can do it, so the first job is knowing who your owners are. I'm Marven Salgado, founder of Social Influence in Mascouche, and I've seen small business owners around Greater Montréal lose control of their listing because they never checked who still had manager access.

How to Add and Remove Managers on Your Google Business Profile, and why access matters

Google Business Profile access matters because anyone with edit rights can change the phone number, hours, photos and review replies that customers see before they ever reach your website.

A web designer or a former employee who kept manager access long after the job ended can still change your hours, swap your phone number or post updates you never approved. An owner can even remove the profile. The same people decide who replies to your reviews, and they control the business details that map results and AI search tools like ChatGPT pull from. If that information drifts, customers get the wrong address or hours, and you may not notice for weeks.

As the owner, you should always know exactly who holds which role. Checking regularly is the simplest way to keep your business information accurate.

Owners and managers on a Google Business Profile: what each role can do

Owners and managers on a Google Business Profile differ mainly in one power: owners can add and remove users, and managers can't.

Here is how I explain owner vs manager to clients. The primary owner has full control, including removing other owners and changing every setting. Other owners can add or remove managers and owners, edit every part of the listing and delete the profile. Managers can edit business details, respond to reviews, post updates and answer questions, but they can't add or remove users or delete the listing.

I suggest keeping one or two owners you fully trust and giving manager access to the people who handle day-to-day work like posts and review replies.

Adding a manager to your Google Business Profile

Adding a manager to your Google Business Profile happens by invitation: an owner opens the people and access settings in the Business Profile, enters the person's Google account email and picks a role.

The person has to accept the invitation before they get access, and they need a Google account to do it. If an invitation sits unanswered, you can remind them or cancel it and send a fresh one. Before you send anything, think about what the person actually needs to do.

Choosing the right role for staff, agencies and freelancers

Choosing the right role comes down to how much the person needs to change and how long they'll be working with you.

This is how I sort people:

1. Owners: the business owner and a trusted partner, since this role controls everything, including removing others.
2. Managers: staff who post updates, answer reviews or edit hours regularly.
3. Agencies and freelancers: manager access is almost always enough to do the work without handing over the keys. When the project or campaign wraps up, their access comes off.

Take a Laval dental clinic as an example: the office manager replies to reviews as a manager, an agency running a spring campaign gets manager access for those months, and the dentist who owns the practice stays an owner.

If you'd rather have someone handle the profile for you, that's the work we do in our Google Business Profile service, always as managers, with ownership staying with you.

Removing a manager from your Google Business Profile

Removing a manager from your Google Business Profile is done by an owner in the same people and access settings: find the person in the list and remove their access.

I've seen owners forget this step for months, which leaves former employees or agencies able to change hours, posts and review replies. Once someone's role changes, treat updating the profile like changing the locks on your office.

When to remove access: departures and ended contracts

Remove access the same day someone leaves or a contract ends, because a person who no longer answers to you shouldn't be able to edit your listing.

Act when:

• an employee quits or is let go
• a marketing agency's contract ends
• a freelancer finishes a project
• someone changes roles and no longer needs access

Former employees keep their permissions until you remove them, so don't wait for a reminder. Review replies are part of how your business looks in public (we cover that side in reputation management), and you want them written by people who still work for you.

Ownership safeguards: more than one owner and a business email

Ownership safeguards start with a second owner, because a single owner is a single point of failure for the whole listing.

If the main owner loses their password, changes jobs or stops answering, a second owner can still manage the listing, add managers and fix problems. I also tell clients to tie the owner accounts to a business email address rather than a personal one. Staff come and go, and the business email stays with the company.

Risk	Safeguard
One owner leaves	A second owner is already in place
Personal email used	Switch ownership to a business email
Lost password	The second owner keeps access
No record of who has access	Write down owners and their emails

A quarterly access audit checklist for your Google Business Profile

A quarterly access audit for your Google Business Profile is a short review of the user list that you add to your calendar and to your staff-change checklist.

1. Open the people and access settings and look at everyone listed.
2. Check each name against current staff and the agencies you still work with.
3. Remove anyone who left or no longer needs access.
4. Confirm you still have at least two owners, both on business email addresses.

Adding a manager doesn't change where you show up in search, so there's no reason to keep extra people on the list. For other common questions about working with us, see our FAQ. Put the next audit date in your calendar now.