If you try to add or undelete a user or group, or update a user's or group's primary or alternate email address, this action results in a conflict if the email address you're using already belongs to an existing user or group in your organization. To resolve the conflict, follow the steps for the error message you get.
"This is an existing primary (or group) email"
This error indicates that the email address you entered is in use by a managed user or group in your organization. You can either enter another email address or change the existing user's or group's email address.
To change an existing email address:
- Sign in with an administrator account to the Google Admin console. Go to the Google Admin console. If you aren't using an administrator account, you can't access the Google Admin console.
- Type the name you're trying to create, rename, or restore in the search box at the top of the Admin console and click the Search icon.
- Click the name of the user or group that currently uses this name.
- Change the user or group name to a different name. If an alias is using the
desired name, go to User information
Email aliases and
remove the alias. - If you renamed the existing user in the previous step, go to User
information Email aliases and remove the email alias
created by the user rename process. When you change a user's primary email
address, the old address is retained as an email alias for the user, to
ensure continuous mail delivery. Therefore, if you want to re-use the old
address, you first need to delete the email alias. For details, go to
Impact on Google Apps when changing a user's email address.
"This account already exists. To add this unmanaged user to your organization, transfer their account."
The steps for resolving this error depend on whether the email address you're using belongs to the same unmanaged user or a different unmanaged user in your organization. For example, if you enter the email address danam@example.com for user Dana M., this address might belong to the same unmanaged user you're trying to add (Dana M.), who has an unmanaged work account, or it might belong to a different user (such as Dan A. M.).
If the email address belongs to:
- The same user—Transfer that user's unmanaged work account to convert it to a managed user account. For details, go to Transfer unmanaged work accounts.
- A different user—Enter a different email address for the user or group you're trying to add, undelete, or update.
If you're not sure which user the email address belongs to, contact your company's human resources department or similar resource.
"User already exists"
If you get this message after you've entered a user's information and clicked Add New User, the email address you entered is being used by an unmanaged personal account. For options to resolve this issue, go to If you have unmanaged personal accounts.
"Can't invite user because they're already a member of..."
If you're the admin of an email-verified unmanaged team, you get this message if you try to invite a user who's already a member of your team or a different team.
If the user is a member of your team, if you verify your domain, the user's unmanaged work account is automatically converted to a managed user account. For details, go to Verify your domain to unlock features (for business email accounts).
If the user is a member of a different team, if your verify your domain, you can transfer the user's unmanaged work account to make it a managed user account. For details, go to Transfer unmanaged work accounts.
"Google Account already exists"
If you receive this error message as you're trying to set up your first Google administrator account, you need to use a different email address to set up an administrator account and verify your domain for your Google service.
Follow these steps to work around the conflicting account during sign up:
- Sign up for your Google service with a new username at your domain.
- You should have access to this email address at your domain. Make sure that it isn't already associated with an AdWords or another Google Account.
- After you sign up for your Google service, you will receive a confirmation email. Click the link in the email to set up your first administrator account. Enter the new username from step 1 as the initial administrator.
- Follow the sign up directions to verify your domain.
- After you've verified your domain, you can create an administrator account using the original email address (where you received the error message) and remove admin privileges from the first Google administrator you set up.
- You can now add additional users and manage your domain.
After you've set up your domain, we recommend you resolve your conflicting account.