How to Revoke an App's Access to Your Google Account

The Google Account permissions page lists every app that holds an active OAuth grant on your account — which can mean the ability to read your mail, compose on your behalf, access your contacts, or modify your calendar. If you signed up for an email tool, a productivity app, or a newsletter service two years ago and have not thought about it since, it is probably still there with the same level of access it had on day one. Learning how to revoke app access to your Google Account takes under a minute once you know where to go.

This guide covers the exact steps to remove a grant, the different routes depending on your starting point, and the honest part that competing posts tend to skip: revoking access stops an app from reading more of your mail going forward, but it does not reach back and erase what the app already pulled into its own storage. Both facts matter before you start.

The short answer#

Revoking an app's access tells Google to invalidate the OAuth token that app holds. From the moment you confirm the removal, the token is dead. Any request that app makes using it — fetching new messages, reading your contacts, creating calendar events — is rejected by Google's servers. The change is immediate and does not require a delay or a cooldown period.

What revoking access does not do is reach into the app's own database and delete what it already downloaded. If an email client pulled a year of messages before you removed its access, those messages remain on the app's servers under whatever data retention policy that vendor operates. Revoking the grant is the correct first step; if you also want that stored data gone, the second step is deleting your account with the vendor directly and following their data deletion process.

• Does: invalidates the OAuth token immediately so the app cannot make new requests to your Google Account.
• Does: removes the grant from your Google Account permissions list.
• Does not: delete messages, contacts, or files the app already copied to its own storage.
• Does not: cancel your subscription or close your account with that vendor.
• Does not: notify the app — it simply starts receiving token-invalid errors on its next request.
• Does not: affect other Google Accounts you may have separately connected to the same app.

Before you start#

The permissions list is account-specific. If you use more than one Google Account — a personal Gmail and a managed Workspace account, for example — each has its own separate list. An app that appears on one account's permissions page does not appear on the other, even if it is connected to both. Check that you are signed into the right Google Account before you begin reviewing or revoking.

You do not need any Google app installed. The permissions page at myaccount.google.com works in any modern browser on desktop or mobile. Have your Google Account password ready in case Google asks you to re-verify before displaying the full security section.

How to revoke an app's access: step by step#

1. 1

   Open the permissions page

   Navigate to myaccount.google.com/permissions in any browser. This URL lands you directly on the 'Apps with access to your account' page without any extra navigation. If prompted to sign in, use the Google Account whose grants you want to manage.

2. 2

   Locate the app you want to remove

   The page lists every app with an active grant. Each entry shows the app name and the Google services it has access to. Scroll through the full list rather than stopping at the first familiar name — older grants from services you signed up to years ago often sit near the bottom.

3. 3

   Read the scopes it holds

   Click the app name to expand its detail view. The scopes describe exactly what that app can do: 'Read, compose, send, and permanently delete all your email from Gmail' is a broad write grant, while 'View your email messages and settings' is read-only. Understanding the scope tells you what you are cutting off and helps you decide whether to remove it or keep it.

4. 4

   Click Remove Access and confirm

   Click the 'Remove Access' button in the detail panel. Google will present a confirmation prompt. After you confirm, the OAuth token is invalidated immediately. The app disappears from the permissions list, and any request it makes with that token from this point forward is rejected.

5. 5

   Repeat for any remaining apps

   You do not need to handle everything in a single session. Return to myaccount.google.com/permissions whenever you want to remove another grant. A useful practice is to review the full list every few months and remove anything you no longer use or recognise.

Where to find the permissions page: platform differences#

The exact path to your app permissions depends on where you are starting. All routes lead to the same Google Account permissions page — the table below shows the fastest option from each starting point.

After you confirm a revocation, the change takes effect on Google's side within seconds. The app receives a token-invalid error on its next request rather than data, and it cannot reconnect without your explicit approval through a new OAuth consent screen.

If you change your mind and want to reconnect an app, simply go through that app's normal connection flow again. Google will show you the consent screen listing the scopes the app is requesting, and you can approve or deny from there. You are not locked out of reconnecting — the revocation just means no further access happens without your knowledge.

What to do when it does not work#

Revocation is usually instant and uneventful, but a handful of situations can make the page behave unexpectedly. Here is what each one means and the fix.

• Remove Access is greyed out: your account is managed by a Google Workspace administrator who has restricted which grants users can revoke. Contact your IT admin and ask them to remove the grant on your behalf, or to change the policy so you can manage it yourself.
• The app reappears after you remove it: the app requested a new grant automatically when you next opened it. Sign out of the app completely before revoking the grant, and do not approve the reconnect prompt the app shows afterwards.
• You removed the grant but the app still appears to read your mail: check whether you have a second Google Account connected to the same app. Visit myaccount.google.com/permissions while signed into each of your Google Accounts separately to confirm all grants are gone.
• The app is not on the list: some older apps authorised via legacy flows do not appear on the modern permissions page. If the app connects through an automation service like Zapier or Make, it may appear under that service's name rather than the underlying app's name — check your Zapier or Make connection settings instead.
• You are investigating a suspicious login but cannot find the app: the permissions page shows OAuth grants; active device sessions are a separate list at myaccount.google.com/device-activity. Check both when investigating a security incident.

A faster way to keep your inbox access under control#

Revoking a grant is a manual, one-at-a-time process. If you want to stay on top of what has access to your inbox on an ongoing basis — not just after an incident — the audit has to become routine, and routine manual processes tend not to happen.

AI Emaily connects to Gmail, Outlook, iCloud, and IMAP accounts over least-privilege OAuth, the same mechanism you just read about. It does not train on your mail. It also treats email content as untrusted data rather than as instructions, which is relevant when a phishing message or a manipulative cold email is trying to get your assistant to act on hidden text. The spam and phishing filter flags suspicious senders and unsolicited outreach before they reach the inbox, shrinking the surface a bad actor has to work with. If you want your inbox managed at the client layer rather than through quarterly manual audits, you can start a 7-day free trial at aiemaily.com and see the plan details at aiemaily.com/pricing. We build AI Emaily.