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Set Admin Group

You'll transfer metastore ownership to a dedicated admin group in ~5 min.

Prereqs: Add Groups, a metastore admin group created (e.g., metastore-admins)

What you'll build​

A metastore owned by a group, not by one person or service principal. Ownership then survives anyone leaving, and the responsibility is shared.

Prerequisites​

  • Account-admin access to the Databricks account console.
  • A metastore admin group already created (see Add Groups).
danger

The metastore owner must be a group. If you assign an individual or a service principal and that person leaves or that principal is deleted, governance operations stop.

Steps​

1. Open the account console​

Go to the account console for your cloud provider:

2. Navigate to the metastore​

  1. On the left panel, click Catalog.
  2. Click on the available metastore.

3. Check the current owner​

Look at who owns the metastore now. If it is already a group (for example metastore-admins), you are done, skip the next step.

4. Transfer ownership​

If the owner is a user or service principal:

  1. Click the owner field to edit it.
  2. Set the metastore admin group (for example metastore-admins or unity-admins) as the new owner.

5. Configure metastore settings​

  1. Turn on auto-assignment for new workspaces if you want the metastore attached to them automatically.
  2. Activate Delta Sharing if your projects need it. This one is optional.
Metastore owner configuration in the account console

Verify​

  1. In the account console, open Catalog and click the metastore.
  2. Confirm the Owner field shows the admin group name, not a person.

Where people trip​

Cannot change the metastore owner

Only the current owner or an account admin can transfer ownership. Confirm you have account-admin privileges. If the current owner already left the organization, contact Databricks support.

Next​