Organization admin left and no one else has admin privileges

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I am trying to join my company’s organization, but the only Admin in the group has left the company and no one else can now manage the group. How do we fix this?

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While there may be cases where users can handle it themselves, contacting support is generally the faster option:

Why you’re stuck

Only organization members with the admin role can manage org settings and membership (invite/remove members, change roles, refresh org tokens, etc.). If the last admin is gone, remaining members can’t self-restore admin from the UI. (Hugging Face)

What to try first (no-support / fastest)

1) If the org already set an Organization email domain, you may be able to join without an admin

If the org previously configured an Organization email domain, then any user with a matching email address on their Hugging Face account can join the org. (Hugging Face)

What to do:

  • Add your work email to your Hugging Face account (and verify it).
  • Go to the organization page and try joining again.

2) If your company uses SSO (Team/Enterprise), you might be able to regain access via IdP role mapping

If SSO is already configured for the org, an existing SSO join link can allow you to authenticate and join. (Hugging Face)
If Role Mapping is already configured, your IdP attributes/groups can dynamically assign your org role (including admin) when you sign in. (Hugging Face)

What to do:

  • Ask your IT/IdP admin whether Hugging Face SSO + role mapping is already set up for your org.
  • If yes, have them place you into the group/attribute value mapped to admin, then sign in via SSO.

If neither of the above works: ask Hugging Face to restore admin / transfer control

Hugging Face has an established process to handle org control recovery after internal verification (commonly requiring your email domain to match the org domain). The documented route is to email website@huggingface.co with the transfer details. (Hugging Face Forums)

What to include in the email:

  • Organization URL / org handle
  • Statement that no admins remain (former admin(s) left the company)
  • Your Hugging Face username (and any coworkers to be made admins)
  • Send from your company email domain (helps verification) (Hugging Face Forums)

If you’re on Enterprise Hub and have a priority support channel, that email is commonly referenced as api-enterprise@huggingface.co. (Hugging Face Forums)

Common pitfall to be aware of

If your org is using verified-domain “User Approval”, matching-domain users may still require admin approval to join—so recovery still needs Hugging Face intervention if there are no admins. (Hugging Face)

After it’s fixed (so it doesn’t happen again)

  • Maintain at least two admins.
  • If you’re on Team/Enterprise, prefer SSO role mapping (and optionally provisioning) so admin can be re-granted via your IdP when staff changes occur. (Hugging Face)