How to move a Google Analytics property to another account

Ideally, when you create a Google Analytics account, it should be associated with a Google account that is the same for all Google services (Tag Manager, Search Console, Optimize, Ads...).

One note, it has to be a Google account, not necessarily a Gmail account, but that's the subject of another article...

The thing is that you can often come across Google Analytics properties that are registered in the account of an agency or a developer. I recently came across this tweet from Noemi Carro:

Let's see, I'm not going to get into legal or moral issues. For what it's worth, my way of working is to create a Google account with the client's email, register all the services and then give access to my account, or if the client has already done the first thing, I ask for access from my Google Search Console, Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager account and my Google Ads MCC,

But let's suppose that we encounter the malpractice of an agency, developer or employee who has registered our Google Analytics property in their own account and we want them to pass control to us, what happens?Do we lose the data collected and have to start from scratch creating a new property? Absolutely NO.

Good news, it is possible to move a property already created within one account to another, and you can do this for both GA3 (AKA Universal Analytics) and GA4 properties. Let's see how to do it.

Video Tutorial

If you prefer to watch it on video, here is a tutorial on my Youtube channel.

How to move a Google Analytics account

The first thing you have to do is, in the Google Analytics account you want to move the property to, is to give access to the user who currently owns the account. Once you have done that, from the account of the user who owns the property you will have to select it in the corresponding column and go to "Property settings".

Once you access the property configuration, in the top right corner you will see two buttons: "Move property" and "Move to trash". Obviously in this case you will have to choose the first option, but I would like to take this opportunity to comment that the second option would delete the property and everything that goes with it. But don't worry, you will still have 35 days before it is completely deleted to restore it.

Once you click on the "Move property" button you will have to choose which account you want to move the property to by scrolling down and selecting the option.

Once you have chosen the destination account, you can choose to keep the property permissions (in GA3 and GA4) and views (only in GA3), or replace these services by the ones defined in the new account to which the property is to be moved.

Then just confirm your acceptance of the terms and conditions and click on the "Start transfer" button, and whistle... This usually takes a few minutes, so don't despair.

Finally, it is a good idea that in the destination account, once you have checked that everything is correct and if you have chosen the option to keep permissions, you delete the user/account that previously had ownership and that you enabled at the beginning.

To be taken into account

A number of considerations when moving an account property in Google Analytics:

A more detailed explanation on a case-by-case basis:

Tracking and Tagging ID

The structure of the Universal Analytics tracking ID, famously UA, is as follows:

• UA Which is the Universal Identifier.
• a 9-digit string, which corresponds to the account ID. These nine digits will always be the same for all properties created from the account.
• A number, initially between 1 and 100, which is the property identifier.

And in the case of GA4 it is simpler as the prefix is G followed by nine digits, which have nothing to do with the account ID.

So what happens to the ID of the property, does it change when I move it, do I have to do anything?

No, you will not have to do anything. The ID of the transferred property is transferred to the new property. Also, the old account does not reuse that ID, so you don't need to change anything.

Property permits

As mentioned above, there are two options to choose from when moving the property:

• Maintain the permissions that the property had in the source account. So the users that had permissions in the source account will continue to have them in the destination account (Bad idea if we are in the situation mentioned at the beginning of a developer / agency that screwed up).
• Replace the permissions with those of the target account. This way, only users of the target account will have access to the property.

Data from the reports

This data is moved between accounts, i.e. moving a property is not used to merge data to another property in the same account.

Settings, configurations, customised definitions, audiences...

All settings and associated objects are migrated without any changes.

Views (GA3)

The associated views are migrated, along with their settings, dashboards, custom reports, annotations, segments and targets (also known as conversions). Remember that views are only present in Universal Analytics /AKA GA3).

Filters

The filters are copied to the target account. In case a filter matches in both accounts (both in name and configuration) it will not be copied and the filter of the target account will be applied.

Moreover, these filters are not removed in the originating account.

Linked accounts

If you have accounts linked to Google Analytics property, such as Google Search Console, Google Ads or Google Adsense, they will move along with it, as well as linking to other platforms such as Campaign Manager 360, Display & Video 360 and Search Ads 360.

However, if you have linked your Google Analytics account with Google Ad Manager, to move the property you will need to contact Google Marketing Platform support to have Ad Manager unlinked before the migration so that once the migration is done, it can be linked again.

Google Optimize experiments

Any experiments you have running with Google Optimize will stop when you migrate.

When a property cannot be moved

In some rare circumstances, you will not be able to move a Google Analytics property:

• The Google Analytics source and target accounts are in different Google Marketing Platform organisations. If you want to move them, you will need to add both accounts to the same Google Marketing Platform organisation.
• You donot have permissions to manage users or edit on the target account. You will need to give these permissions.
• The property is linked to Google Ad Manager. As mentioned above, you will need to contact Google Marketing Platform support.
• An unsampled report is being processed on the property. Wait for this/these report(s) to finish processing.
• The target account already has the maximum number of properties, at this moment it is 100. Nothing to do at first, except delete properties in the target account or migrate to Google Analytics 360 (keep in mind that it is paid). However, it will be very difficult to reach 100 properties in a Google Analytics account.

I invite you to leave your impressions and/or doubts in the contact form and to suggest new topics that you would like me to cover in these tutorials. I will be happy to answer you by email and write in this blog.