When Google Apps users (who may don’t even know that the platform is on Google Apps) forgets their password, they can always go to the system administrators of the Google Apps to reset the password. But what if Google Apps administrator forgets his or her password, especially the single sole administrator?

Without a valid password, administrator cannot access the Google Apps control panel, which is essential to managing the user accounts, nor able to access Google Apps online services such as Email and etc.

Google Apps allows administrator to reset and recover password using an automated system, which will automatically sends reset instructions to the registered secondary email address or to another address that administrator specifies after domain verification is done.

Note that the automated method for resetting the administrator password is not available for Google Apps accounts with more than 500 user accounts, where administrator has to contact another administrator to reset the password, or contact Google Support to reset the administrator password.

Here’s how to reset the administrator password:

  1. Visit the sign in page the Google Apps administrator control panel which has the following URL format:

    https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/<domain-name>

    where <domain-name> is the domain name used to register the Google Apps.

  2. Click Can’t access your account?
  3. Click Reset your administrator password.

    Reset Administrator Password of Google Apps

    If your Google Apps account allows automated password reset, a page appears with a CAPTCHA word verification test.

    Captcha to Reset Password

    If the automated reset option is disabled for your account, you see a Help Center article rather than the CAPTCHA screen. You need to contact Google Support to reset the administrator password.

  4. Enter the letters from the CAPTCHA into the text field, then click Submit.

    When you correctly solve the CAPTCHA, Google sends a message to the secondary email address associated with your Google Apps account. The confirmation page shows the domain name of the secondary email address to help you identify it.

  5. If you have access to the secondary email address, sign in to that account, open the message with the subject line “Google Password Assistance” (if not found, make sure to check the Spam and Trash folders too), and click on the link that appears in the message.

    Google Password Assistance

    The link opens a page where you can select which administrator account to reset the password for and enter the new password. Skip the rest of the steps.

    Reset Google Apps Administrator Password

    If you don’t find the message in the Inbox, or don’t have access to the secondary email address, continue with the steps below to reset the password using the domain verification method.

  6. If you do not have access to the secondary email address, click Reset your administrator password by domain verification on the confirmation page that appeared after you submitted the CAPTCHA.

    Note: Domain purchased from Google during the sign-up process does not have this option.

  7. Enter the email address to which you want Google to send the password reset instructions.

    Send Google Apps Password Reset to Another Email

  8. Click Continue with domain verification.
  9. Complete the steps described on the page that appears, which basically requires you to create or change a CNAME DNS record for the domain to point to google.com.

    Google Apps Domain Verification

  10. Then, click I’ve completed the steps above, continue.
  11. Once Google verify the CNAME changes (which may take up to 48 hours), it will send the password reset instructions to the email address you entered at step above.
  12. Sign in to the specified email account, open the message with the subject line “Google Password Assistance”, and follow the link that appears in the message to open a page where you can select which administrator account to reset the password for and enter the new password.

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