Multiple Accounts Errors

What to do if I receive errors related to using multiple Google accounts?

This article describes how to overcome error messages that may result from using multiple Google accounts within the same web browser.

Problem

You may receive one of the following error messages when using Mail Merge add-on:

"Authorization is required to perform that action."
“A server error has occurred. Please wait a bit and try again.”

These errors occur when two or more Google accounts share the same web browser.

For example, Tom may check his personal Gmail (tom@gmail.com) on one browser tab and then access his work Google Drive (tom@company.com) on another tab. When Tom later comes to do a mail merge, he may receive one of the errors above.

This is a documented Google bug.

Temporary work-around

Load your browser in Incognito/InPrivate mode by pressing Ctrl+Shift+N.

Permanent solution

In Google Chrome, create a profile for each Google account. Each user account can then have their own profile to access their Google account, rather than using a single shared profile.

In our example, Tom would have a Chrome profile where he would access all of his personal (tom@gmail.com) Google services. Tom would also have a Chrome profile where he would access all of his work (tom@company.com) Google services (see screenshot below). The error would be avoided as Tom would not use multiple Google accounts in the same profile.

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