A Gmail delegate invitation must reach the intended Google Account and be accepted within a week. Troubleshoot delivery, identity, and expiry before repeatedly creating new invitations.
Confirm the owner invited the right address
Ask the owner to inspect Grant access to your account and verify the full delegate address. For a work or school account, confirm that delegation is allowed and the person is eligible within the organization.
An email alias is not itself a separate Google Account. If an alternate address caused confusion, establish which actual account should receive and accept access rather than attempting to sign in as the alias.
Find and verify the invitation
In the intended mailbox, search for the invitation whose subject says that the owner has granted you access to their Gmail account. Check Spam and other filtered locations if needed. Confirm with the owner through a known channel before following an unexpected access invitation.
Open the confirmation link while signed in as the invited account. If several Google Accounts are open, verify which one is active. Do not forward the invitation to a colleague and treat that as an authorized transfer of access.
Handle expiry and propagation separately
If more than a week has passed, have the owner use the supported access controls to remove the stale invitation if necessary and invite the correct account again. Keep track of which invitation is current.
After acceptance, Google allows up to 24 hours for access to become available. If it still fails beyond that, record the invitation and acceptance times, account addresses, and exact error for the administrator. Never include the confirmation link or security codes in a public support post. If the inbox opens but a particular feature is unavailable, investigate delegation’s feature limits; sending another invitation will not add capabilities that delegated access does not support.
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References
Reviewed against the linked product guidance, standards, and identified vendor or public-authority guidance on October 29, 2026. Available options and screen labels can vary by account, device, region, and organization policy.