Changing the owner of your Buffer account
The account owner is the user who signed up for the Buffer account, has admin access, and can manage billing. If you're the account owner and no longer plan to manage your account, follow this guide to transfer ownership to another person.
If the person taking over the account doesn't already have a Buffer account, you can change the account email address and direct the new owner to reset the password. If the person taking over already has a Buffer account, a few extra steps might be needed.
In this article:
- Changing the account owner to a new user
- Changing the account owner to one of your existing team members
Changing the account owner to a new user
- The first thing to do is disable two-factor authentication if you have it enabled. This will allow the new account owner to log in after resetting the password. To do this:
- Click on your profile avatar at the top right of your dashboard and choose Settings. If the toggle in the Two Factor Authentication section is set to Enabled, switch it to Disabled.
- Next, you'll need to change the email address on your account. Click on your profile avatar at the top right of your dashboard and then click Settings. Change the email address to the email address of the person taking over the account and click Save Changes. You'll then need to enter your password to confirm the change.
đź“ť If you see the message "Whoops! This email is already in use. Mind trying again?", it means the email address you entered is already associated with another Buffer account.
- If you're on a Team plan and the email belongs to one of your team members, jump to the section below.
- If you're seeing this error on the Essentials plan, or you're on the Team plan and trying to change ownership to someone outside of your team, please email us at hello@buffer.com so we can help.
- A verification email will be sent to the new owner. You can now ask the new owner to verify their email in order to complete the change and then visit the forgotten password page here to reset the password using their email address. Once the password has been changed, they will be able to log into the account. At this point, you'll no longer have access.
- You'll also need to ask the new owner to update the credit card details in the Billing area (if those also need to be changed). You can share these steps with them.
Changing the account owner to one of your existing team members
At this time, you can transfer ownership of your account to any team member with Admin access*. You can do this directly from your Buffer Settings.
To get there:
- Click the profile link in the upper left corner of the dashboard.
- Select Settings from the dropdown menu.
- Select General in the left sidebar or use this link.
- Under "Account Owner," search for the team member you'd like to transfer the ownership to.
- Select their name from the dropdown menu and click Change Owner to complete the process.
*Important Note:
To be eligible as a new owner, the selected team member must meet all of the following criteria:
They must not have any channels connected to their own organization
Their Buffer account should not be managing any channels outside of your current organization.
They must be an Admin in your current organization
Only users with Admin status are eligible to take over account ownership. Learn more about user permission levels here.
If a team member meets these conditions, their name will appear in the dropdown list under "Account Owner." Simply select them and click Change Owner to transfer ownership.
💡 Tip: If the person you'd like to assign as owner isn’t showing up, double-check that they’ve been invited as an Admin and don’t have connected channels elsewhere.
Still need help? Reach out to our Customer Advocacy Team at hello@buffer.com and we'll be happy to assist you.