In certain situations, administrators of ProtonMail Professional Accounts may lose access to certain administrative privileges.
Administrative privileges can be lost in the following situations:
- Resetting your ProtonMail account password. This only happens when you forget your password and reset it, there is no impact if you merely changed your ProtonMail password.
- The Organization Password was reset.
- The Organization Key was changed.
In these situations, your administrator privileges will be restricted. The following actions will be no longer permitted:
- Creating new sub-users
- Reading emails from non-private subusers
Restoring full administrator privileges
Administrative privileges for your account can be restored in the following cases:
Case 1: Another administrator performed an Organization Password reset or Organization Key change, and knows the new Organization Password
If another administrator in your organization performed a Organization Password reset or Organization Key change, you will need to ask that other administrator for the new Organization Password. Entering this new Organization Password will restore full administrative privileges. You will see the following error at the top of your screen if you enter the incorrect password.
Case 2: You reset your account password, but you still know the Organization Password
If you have restricted privileges because you reset your password, but you still know the Organization Password, you can restore privileges by entering the Organization Password where prompted.
Case 3: All Administrators have forgotten the Organization Password, but at least one administrator can still log into their ProtonMail Account
In this case, the administrator that can still log in can change the Organization Password, and give you the new Organization Password. Entering this new Organization Password will restore full administrative privileges.
Resetting the Organization Password
If nobody in your Organization has the Organization Password, and no other administrators can access their ProtonMail accounts, then you will have to reset the Organization Password.
Resetting the Organization Password has several consequences:
- You will no longer be able to read the emails of non-private users.
- All other administrators will have restricted privileges and will have to follow the steps on this page to restore their administrative privileges.
For this reason, resetting the Organization Password should only be done as a last resort. Before you can reset an Organization Password, you must first convert all non-private users in your organization to private users, or remove/delete all non-private users.
Afterwards, you will be permitted to reset the organization password. Once you do so, you will receive the following confirmation message.
