Hi @loic,

You can transfer ownership of a Delta Share using the ALTER SHARE ... OWNER TO SQL command. This is available in Databricks SQL and Databricks Runtime 11.3 LTS and above.

USING SQL

The syntax is straightforward:

ALTER SHARE my_share OWNER TO `new_owner@company.com`;

The SET keyword is optional, so this is equivalent:

ALTER SHARE my_share SET OWNER TO `new_owner@company.com`;

The new owner (the "principal") can be either an individual user or a group. Databricks recommends using a group as the share owner rather than an individual user, since this avoids issues if that person leaves the organization or changes roles.

WHO CAN TRANSFER OWNERSHIP

To run this command, you must be one of the following:

1. The current owner of the share
2. A metastore admin

If you are a metastore admin, you can transfer ownership of any share regardless of whether you own it. If you are the current share owner, you can transfer it to another user or group.

TRANSFERRING TO A GROUP (RECOMMENDED)

If you want multiple team members to manage the share, transfer ownership to a group:

ALTER SHARE my_share OWNER TO `data-sharing-admins`;

Members of that group will then inherit owner-level permissions on the share, which includes the ability to add or remove data assets, update share properties, and manage recipient access (when combined with the appropriate metastore-level privileges).

USING THE DATABRICKS CLI / REST API

You can also update share ownership via the Unity Catalog REST API:

PATCH /api/2.1/unity-catalog/shares/{share_name}
{
"owner": "new_owner@company.com"
}

Or using the Databricks CLI:

databricks shares update my_share --owner "new_owner@company.com"

VERIFYING THE CHANGE

After transferring ownership, you can confirm it with:

DESCRIBE SHARE my_share;

or:

SHOW SHARES;

The owner column will reflect the new principal.

DOCUMENTATION REFERENCES

- ALTER SHARE syntax: https://docs.databricks.com/en/sql/language-manual/sql-ref-syntax-ddl-alter-share.html
- Creating and managing shares: https://docs.databricks.com/en/data-sharing/create-share.html
- Delta Sharing overview: https://docs.databricks.com/en/data-sharing/index.html

* This reply used an agent system I built to research and draft this response based on the wide set of documentation I have available and previous memory. I personally review the draft for any obvious issues and for monitoring system reliability and update it when I detect any drift, but there is still a small chance that something is inaccurate, especially if you are experimenting with brand new features.

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