Hunt Visuals
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Client guide · 10 minutes · laptop

Let us into your YouTube channel

The channel stays in your name forever. We need to get into it properly to upload, write the descriptions, set thumbnails, build playlists and fix the hundred small settings that decide whether a video gets shown to anyone. This is how.

The catch

YouTube only lets you add a manager if the channel is on a Brand Account. One tied to your personal Google login can't be shared at all until it's moved.

Who to add

hv@huntvisuals.com as a Manager. Not Editor, editors can't publish. Not Owner, that's you.

You'll need

The Google login that owns the channel, and your phone if that login has two step codes on.

Your progress

The steps

Step 1 decides whether you need step 2 at all.

There are two kinds and they look identical from the outside. A Brand Account channel can have managers. A channel sitting directly on your personal Google account can't.

  1. On a laptop go to studio.youtube.com, logged in as whoever runs the channel.
  2. Bottom left, click Settings, then Permissions.
  3. If you see an Invite button, it's a Brand Account. Skip to step 3.
  4. If instead it says something like "Move channel to a Brand Account to add managers", or there's no Invite button, do step 2.
No channel yet?

Don't make one in a rush. The handle and the Brand Account bit are hard to undo. Tell us and we'll set it up properly with you in ten minutes.

Open YouTube Studio

This moves the channel, with all its videos, subscribers and history, onto a Brand Account that your Google login owns. Nothing public changes. Your subscribers won't notice.

!
Two things don't move: your comments on other people's videos, and any custom URL. Neither matters for what we're doing, but it's worth knowing before you click.
  1. Go to youtube.com/account_advanced.
  2. Click Move channel to a Brand Account. It may ask you to sign in again.
  3. Choose Create a new Brand Account and name it your business name. Or, if one's listed already, pick that one.If it warns the Brand Account already has a channel, pick "replace" so yours takes over.
  4. Confirm. Give it a minute, then go back to step 1 and check the Invite button is there now.
Open advanced settings
  1. In YouTube Studio, Settings, then Permissions, then Invite.
  2. Email: hv@huntvisuals.com.
  3. Role: Manager.Editor can't publish or change channel settings. Viewer can't do anything. Manager is the one.
  4. Click Done. We get an email and accept it the same day.

Some settings, like verifying the channel for custom thumbnails and longer uploads, send a code to the owner's phone. This is the thing that actually stalls a channel setup, usually for a day. So tell us up front who to ring when a code comes through.

  1. Message us the name and mobile of whoever's Google login owns the channel.
  2. Tell us whether that login has two step verification on, and whether codes go by text or an authenticator app.
If you'd rather we just did the whole thing

Some of what makes a channel work isn't available to a manager at all. If you'd like us to set the whole channel up this week instead of talking you through it, we can do it with the login. It goes on our private board only, never into a shared document, and you change the password the moment we're done. Say so in your message.

Email us it's done

If you get stuck

The Invite button isn't there even after moving to a Brand Account

Log out and back in, the change takes a minute to show. If it's still missing, you may be signed in as a manager of the Brand Account rather than its owner. Only the primary owner can invite. Check at myaccount.google.com, then Brand Accounts.

Someone else set the channel up and I don't have the login

An old videographer, a family member, a previous employee. Ask them to add your Google login as Primary owner of the Brand Account, then do the steps above yourself. If they've vanished, tell us. Google's recovery is slow but it exists.

I've got a Google Workspace account for the business, should I use that?

Yes, if it's the one that will outlive any individual member of staff. A channel owned by someone's personal Gmail walks out the door when they do.

What can a Manager actually do?

Upload, publish, edit titles and descriptions, set thumbnails, reply to comments, build playlists, read analytics, change most channel settings. What it can't do is delete the channel, change who owns it, or touch your Google account. Which is exactly the line you'd want.

Yours forever, built by us

Once we're in, the channel gets set up properly and every upload after that is our job, not yours.

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