The Airtable Admin Panel allows you to manage users and what they have access to. Occasionally, it is necessary to add another user to an existing workspace or base or modify an existing user’s access. These circumstances include:
- The original owner of the workspace has been deactivated
- You as the admin want to investigate what data is stored in a workspace or base
Within the Admin Panel it’s possible to add or remove a user or at either the workspace or base level.
Removing users from a workspace
To do this, you can go the Workspace management page in the Admin Panel. Then click on the list of collaborators under the Collaborators column. This will pull up a new pane where you can further review all collaborators and their access.
If the user is listed as a workspace collaborator, you can click on the Menu and then click “Unshare from this workspace.” This will remove the user from the workspace.
Workspaces with only one owner and adding workspace owners
Airtable requires that all workspaces have at least one user who is an Owner of the workspace. If you try and remove a workspace owner, and they are the only owner, you will see a message that says: “You may not unshare a workspace's only owner”
At the top of the pane is the ability to add a new owner to the workspace. Once you perform that action, you can then remove the original owner. Many admins refer to this as “transferring ownership” of the workspace from one user to another.
Removing users from a base
Similar to how you can remove users from a workspace, you can also remove them from a particular base via the Base management section of the Admin Panel.
If you click on the list of collaborators in the Collaborator column, you’ll see a new pane that lists all collaborators and their permission levels in that base. If the user is a Base collaborator, then you can click on the menu to remove them from the base.
Programmatically removing users
All of these actions are also supported in our Admin API. If you need to remove a user from many workspaces and bases or want to automate this process more generally, then you should consider using the Admin API.
Remove a user from all workspaces and bases
Sometimes, you want to remove a user from all workspaces and bases that they collaborate. This is often done after a user leaves an organization. To do this, you can go to the User management section of the Admin Panel and click on the menu for a given user. Then click “Remove enterprise collaborator” to remove them as a collaborator from all workspaces and bases.
If the user is the only owner of one or more workspaces, you’ll be asked to provide a user to add as the new owner. This new owner will be applied to all such workspaces.
Deactivate or remove
There is a difference between deactivating a user and removing them. Deactivating prevents the user from being able to login to Airtable in the future. Removing only removes their existing base and workspace privileges, but the user could log back in to Airtable and create new workspaces and bases.
These actions are often done in tandem. For example, when a user leaves your organization, you want to deactivate their account such that they can no longer access Airtable. You may also want to transition all of their workspaces to a new owner to properly steward the information the user stored in Airtable which you can do by using the “Remove enterprise collaborator” option.