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Databricks Free Edition Help
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Accidentally removed the only workspace admin – Free Edition

RodrigoSilva
New Contributor II

Hello Databricks Team,

I accidentally removed my own user account from the admins group in my Databricks Free Edition workspace.

I was the only administrator, and I can no longer access the Identity and Access settings.

My account still has access to the workspace, but it only belongs to the users and users-clone groups.

Is there any supported way to restore my administrator privileges without deleting the workspace?

My databricks URL: https://dbc-686a8fac-6dc1.cloud.databricks.com/

Thank you!

1 REPLY 1

Louis_Frolio
Databricks Employee
Databricks Employee

Hi @RodrigoSilva, I did some digging and here is what I found.

In a regular Databricks account this is a quick fix: an account admin opens the account console and hands the workspace admin role back. Free Edition doesn't have an account console or account-level APIs (https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/getting-started/free-edition-limitations), and assigning the admin role inside the workspace requires an existing workspace admin (https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/admin/users-groups/users). With nobody left in the admins group, both paths are closed. I don't know of a documented self-service way to restore the last admin from inside Free Edition.

One long shot to check first. If you created a service principal while you were admin, it's in the admins group, and you saved its OAuth secret, you can authenticate as that service principal with the Databricks CLI and add yourself back through the documented workspace Groups API. A personal access token from your admin days won't help, since tokens carry the permissions your user has right now. Steer clear of anything undocumented.

If that's not an option, ask Databricks directly. Free Edition isn't covered by the standard support policy, so I can't promise an outcome, but tag a Community moderator on this thread, and try help@databricks.com, which this forum has pointed people to for Free Edition account issues (https://community.databricks.com/t5/get-started-discussions/how-to-remove-extra-databricks-free-edit...). The Free Edition Help board is another option (https://community.databricks.com/t5/databricks-free-edition-help/bd-p/Databricks-Express-Setup). Don't post credentials or tokens anywhere along the way, and I'd edit your post to remove the workspace URL, since nobody needs it to help you.

While you wait, back up your work now. Right-click a workspace folder and download it as a DBC or source ZIP (https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/notebooks/notebook-export-import), and pull down anything in Unity Catalog you care about. Hold off on deleting or recreating anything until Databricks has answered and your exports are in hand.

The users-clone group is expected, by the way. Databricks moved entitlements off the users system group this year and into a workspace-local clone so people keep their access (https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/admin/users-groups/groups).

Bottom line here, without an account console or a second admin identity, you're depending on Databricks to reset the role. Hopefully they can, and if not, the backup means starting over costs you setup time rather than your work.

Regards,
Louis