Google Apps – Lost Admin Password

I had a client who lost the password to their Google Apps administrator account. When you set up a Google Apps domain, you have to register an administrator e-mail address, and you have the option to add a second administrator e-mail address. If you forget your admin password, you can automatically have a password reset to the secondary administrator’s email.

If you fail to register the secondary e-mail, you can prove that you own the domain in question by setting up a custom CNAME record. Google tells you what record to set up, and if the CNAME shows up in DNS Google will send a password reset email to any e-mail address that you specify.

Unfortunately, none of this can be done if your Google Apps domain has more than 500 mailboxes. I don’t know why this arbitrary number was selected, but that’s what you have to work with. Enterprise and Education customers have a phone number to call for help, but you are stuck in a catch-22. You can not access Google support for help because you need your support PIN, but the only way to get the PIN is to log on with an administrative account. You can’t write your PIN down because it changes regularly. There is no published way to contact support without your support PIN.

I ended up using another customer’s support PIN to access support so I could find out what the process is to reset a lost admin password. I was provided with this URL: https://support.google.com/a/bin/request.py?contact_type=admin_no_access. This is a form that you can fill out without your support PIN and Google will assist.

Hopefully this post saves somebody a few hours of headaches.