In the early ages of YouTube and Google Plus connections, disconnecting and reconnecting channels to the correct G+ page was not an easy feat. I once wrote a blog about this lengthy workaround for LocalU. Not long after that blog post, Google released a support form that allowed you to have a YouTube support specialist do the reconnection for you. While this support was amazing and usually reconnected channels within 24-48 hours, it required a middleman to get the work done and wasn’t immediate.
Now, Google has released a way to reconnect your channel to another page within your account in the Advanced Settings section of YouTube! If everything is in one account, then this reconnection takes mere seconds. Often, however, we find ourselves in a situation where the channel is connected to a personal Google Plus page in one Google account, and we want it connected to a business page in another login.
So I’m here to walk you through how to handle both of the aforementioned situations.
Reconnecting A Channel Within One Account
We’ll start with the simple one. You’ve got a YouTube channel connected to one page (probably a person page, maybe a random brand page), and you want it connected to your official business page on Google plus. Whatever shall you do!?
Step 1: Go to YouTube.com and log in to your Google account. In the top-right corner of the page, click on the circle that shows your page icon to see a list of pages and their channels within this account.
Usually, when you first log in to YouTube, you’re automatically managing or acting as your personal Google Plus page (the profile listed first in the dropdown is the one you’re currently acting as). To manage another page, which is what we’ll need to do to move channels, you’d just click the page you wish to manage from the dropdown.
Deleting Unnecessary Channels Side Steps:
Before we can proceed with moving channels, however, note that in the screenshot above, both of the extra pages have “subscribers” listed under their page names. This means that channels have been created for both of these pages already (otherwise we’d see “Create a Channel” below the page names). So if we want to move a channel to the page “Mary Silva Photography” in this account, then we’ll have to free it up for receiving a channel by deleting the unwanted channel that is currently connected to it.
This can be done fairly easily by clicking the “YouTube Settings” gear from that top-right dropdown while managing the page from which you want to delete the channel.
Then click “Advanced” under the page name in the “Overview” tab.
At the very bottom of the page, you’ll see the “Delete channel” option. Once you click that, you’ll probably have to re-enter your password. Brace yourself.
You’ll see a verification page to confirm what you’re about to do. Check the box and click “Delete channel” to get one more verification dialogue, then click “Delete channel” one last time to complete the process.
Now we can get back to moving the channel. In this example, we’ll pretend that the channel connected to “RedHeadedRabbit” needs to be moved over to “Mary Silva Photography.” As you can see in the next screenshot in Step 2, “Mary Silva Photography” now shows “Create a Channel” in the dropdown, so it’s free to take on the channel from the “RedHeadedRabbit” page.
Step 2: Click on the page that has the channel you want to move in the top-right dropdown to manage the page (in this case, “RedHeadedRabbit”), and then the aforementioned “YouTube Settings” gear should appear for that page. Navigate back to the “Advanced” settings page from the “Overview” tab just as you would have to delete the channel.
Step 3: This time, however, you’ll want to click the “Move channel to different Google+ profile or page” option just above the “Default Channel” header. Google will probably make you enter your password again, so brace yourself.
Step 4: Now you’ll see the “Move YouTube channel” page. Under “MY CHANNEL (AFTER MOVE)” click the “Select desired page or profile” button.
Step 5: Choose the page you want to move the channel to from the “Available profiles / pages” section.
Step 6: Confirm where you’re moving the channel (you can click links on this page to double-check that you’re moving the right channel to the right Plus pages) and click “Move channel…” to complete the transfer.
Step 7: Click “Move channel” in one last confirmation dialogue box, and you’re done! You’ll see one last confirmation screen about the successful channel transfer.
Reconnecting A Channel With Two Different Accounts
As previously mentioned, we often find that we have a channel connected to a personal Google Plus page in one Google account, and we want it connected to a business page in another login. The steps for moving the channel will be the same as above, but first, we must get the pages all set up properly within one account.
The account that has the channel has to be the OWNER of the page that we want to move the channel over to. So we need to go through adding the YouTube channel account as a manager of the business page within the other account first. Then we can go back and transfer ownership of the business page over to the channel account completely.
Step 1: Log in to the account that the main business is claimed in and go into your Pages.
Step 2: Choose “Manage this page” for the listing that you want to make the YouTube account a manager of.
Step 3: Go to “Settings” in the dropdown. Then, choose “Managers” under the “More” tab and add the email address for the YouTube account as a manager by clicking “Add managers.”
Step 4: Log in to the email for the account with the YouTube in it. Look for the email that says “Person Name invited you to become a manager of the Business Name’s Google+ page” and click “Become a manager” within that email.
Step 5: The link from the email will take you to the Google Plus page and automatically open a “Become a manager of Page Name” dialogue where you’ll click “Accept” to complete the managership setup.
Here’s where we wait…Unfortunately, for security reasons, Google requires an account to be a manager of a page for at least one day (as seen in screenshot below) before ownership of the page can be transferred over. So wait a day and come back to me when you’re ready to wrap this up. 😉
Step 6 (One Day Later): Now log back in to the account that owns the page and follow steps 1-3 again to get back to your “Managers” settings page of your official business page. When you click “Manager” under the account name, you’ll see a dropdown with the option to “Transfer ownership to Person Name” where you previously saw “Must be a Manager for 1 day before becoming the Owner.” Once you click that, you’ll click “OK” to verify the transfer of ownership, and then the transfer is complete!
You’ll get an email in that new owner account saying something like, “Person has made you the owner of the Page Name Google+ page.” Unlike the managership process, you don’t have to click anything in an email, so the ownership has been transferred completely, and you’re done!
Now that you have everything set up properly, you can proceed with steps two to seven in the “Reconnecting A Channel Within One Account” section above.
Hopefully this extensive tutorial helps you through all of your YouTube woes. To learn more about the ins and outs of Google Plus pages in Google My Business, you can read more on the blog here.
