How to get admin access back to a Facebook Page when the admin has left

How you get control back depends on who controls the Page now. If someone with full control can still be reached, they can give you Facebook access with full control, or full access through the business portfolio the Page is in. If the Page is in your own business portfolio and nobody with full control is left, Meta has a request for full control that needs documents. If the Page was hacked or taken by a scam, Meta's Page recovery form is the route. Meta will not tell you who controls a portfolio that owns your Page.

Work through the sections in order. Each of Meta's routes starts with finding the right person.

Find out who controls the Page now

Start with your own access. On Facebook, click your profile photo, See all profiles, select the Page, click the Page's profile picture, then Settings & privacy > Settings > Page setup > Page access. If it opens, you still have Facebook access and can see your own level there. How to see who has access explains each list.

If the Page is gone from your profiles, Facebook's help says someone who manages the Page may have removed you, and suggests contacting:

• anyone who has Facebook access with full control of the Page
• current and former employees, contractors and others who had access, and asking them to check their access level

Add former agencies to that list. Ask each of them two questions: do they still have access, and is the Page in a business portfolio they can see?

Someone with full control can still be reached

Ask them to give you control, then check that it worked before they step back.

• A Page outside a business portfolio. They add you under Page access > People with Facebook access > Add New and select you for full control. You get an email and accept. The steps are in how to transfer ownership of a Facebook Page.
• A Page in a business portfolio. Meta's help says Page access is given from the portfolio, to people who are in it. If you are not in it, you have to be invited first, and Meta says someone with full access to the portfolio approves that. Then they assign you full access to the Page. If the portfolio is your business's, ask for full access to the whole portfolio too.

Your business portfolio has nobody with full control left

Meta has a request for full control of a business portfolio. Meta asks you to try the person with full control first. It lists these as cases where you may be eligible:

• the person with full control is a former employee or contractor with no ownership rights
• the business changed ownership and lost access to the portfolio
• no one has full control
• the person with full control has died, and you can provide a death certificate
• you have a court order showing you own the business

You send three documents: an ID of the person asking, a document that proves you own the business the portfolio belongs to, and a signed attestation letter. Meta lists what each may be. The letter is on letterhead and includes the business portfolio ID, your Facebook profile URL, user ID and email, why you need full control, who has it now if you know, and a declaration that the information is true.

To submit, log in with the Facebook profile linked to the portfolio, go to Business Support Home, start a chat and choose Business Manager admin dispute when asked for the issue, then upload the documents. If Meta approves, you get full control. Meta says the people already in the portfolio are not removed, so remove the old admins yourself afterwards; see how to remove someone from your Page or business portfolio.

The Page is in someone else's business portfolio

If the Page is owned by a portfolio your business is not in, for example an old agency's or a former employee's own business, only people in that portfolio can remove the Page or give you access to it. Meta says that for privacy reasons it cannot tell you who has full control of the owning portfolio, so the contacts above are the way in.

Meta's help also describes a request to release a Page: anyone with full control of the Page can ask for it to be removed from a business portfolio. The portfolio has 30 days to approve or decline under Requests, and if it does not respond, the Page stays. The help pages read for this guide do not show where that request is started.

Requesting shared access to the Page from your own portfolio does not solve this. Meta says a shared-access request gives tasks on the Page, not ownership.

Nobody can be reached

Be realistic here. Facebook says that if a Page has no one left with full control, it is deactivated and scheduled for deletion. Meta's Page recovery form is for Pages taken by hacking or a scam, and Meta says it can only act if it can confirm the Page was compromised. Meta also notes that access can be lost for other reasons: the person is not the authorized representative of the Page's subject, or the Page was removed for going against the Community Standards.

The help pages read for this guide describe no other route for a Page whose admin simply left. Keep looking for that person or business, including former agencies and contractors.

If the Page was hacked or taken by a scam

Submit the Facebook Page recovery form, linked from Meta's article Recover a hacked Facebook Page you manage. Meta says to log in first; the form only lets you pick a Page you recently lost access to. If you cannot log in to Facebook at all, Meta says to visit facebook.com/hacked on a device you have used to log in before. Meta aims to reply by email within a day, and says some reviews take longer. If you are helping someone else, they have to log in and submit the form themselves.

After you get the Page back, Meta suggests unlocking your account if it was locked, looking through the Page and the business portfolio for changes you do not recognize and undoing them, and turning on Advanced Protection.

Avoid recovery scams

Meta's hacked-Page article names scams as one way Pages are lost. Meta says:

• Its representatives never request money or ask for passwords, payment details or other sensitive information over chat, text, email or phone.
• Its emails come only from its own domains and their subdomains, including fb.com, facebook.com, facebookmail.com, instagram.com, meta.com and metamail.com. Suspected phishing goes to phish@fb.com.
• Fake partner requests with phishing links have been sent through Meta's own facebookmail.com address. If you do not know the business in a partner request, do not click its links.

So anyone who charges to recover a Page, or asks for your login, is not acting for Meta. Before you accept any request about your Page, use how to check an agency access request.

Afterwards: two people with full control

Meta recommends two active people with full control of a business portfolio, which also adds a second approval to sensitive actions. Give a second person full control of the Page or portfolio, and require two-factor authentication for everyone; see two-factor authentication in a business portfolio. Then remove people who have not logged in for 90 days, as Meta's Security Center suggests, and keep the list of who has access up to date. When you bring in an agency, the access checklist helps you give it what it needs and no more.