Understanding managed accounts

Some Professional groups require managed accounts.

If you’re an administrator looking for support with Managed Users, please visit our page for admins.

Managed Overleaf accounts are user accounts that are managed by your group or organization. They’re designed to help organizations ensure their work remains secure and accessible to them, even if someone leaves the organization. For this reason, managed user accounts should only be used for working on projects for the organization that owns the account.

How do I know if my Overleaf account is managed?

You can easily check if your Overleaf account is managed. It’ll be highlighted at the top of your Account settings page.

What’s the difference between a managed user account and an unmanaged user account?

If your account is managed, there are a few key things you will not be able to do:

• Delete your account

• Change the account email address

• Have a secondary email address (or add a secondary address)

• Link your account to ORCID or IEEE single sign-on (SSO)

• Start a new subscription or join another subscription using the same email address

• Use AI features unless enabled by your administrator

Your group administrator will have admin rights over your account. Administrators and managers will be able to:

• Delete your account

• Reassign ownership of your projects to another group member if your account is deleted

AI features and managed accounts

This information is for managed users. If you are an admin see our controlling feature availability documentation.

If your organization has disabled AI features, you won't be able to use Overleaf's AI tools—including Error Assist, language suggestions, and the AI assistant—even if your plan would normally include them.

This applies to your activity on all Overleaf projects, regardless of who owns the project or which plan they're on.

If you think AI features should be available to you, contact your group administrator. They can enable AI features for your organization.

Using AI on projects you've been invited to

Whether you can use AI on a project depends on your own account settings—not the project owner's.

• If your organization has disabled AI features, you can't use AI tools in any project, including ones owned by someone outside your organization.

• If your organization has enabled AI features, you can use AI in projects you have access to, within your plan's daily allowance.

• If you are a collaborator on a project owned by someone who's organization has diasbled AI tools, you will not be able to use AI on this project.

Keep work and personal projects separate

It’s important to only use your managed Overleaf account for your group or organization’s work. If your group admin or a group manager deletes your account, they will be able to transfer the ownership of all of your Overleaf projects. This includes any personal files in your account.

It’s easy to keep your personal files separate. You can set up a separate Overleaf account under a personal email address and transfer ownership of your personal projects to this account.

Stopping an individual subscription

Users who agree to have a managed account can't have an individual subscription associated with that Overleaf account.

If you need to cancel an individual subscription to enable you to join a managed group, please contact Overleaf support. We can stop your subscription and issue a pro-rated refund for the unused portion of your latest payment.