Inherited a Squarespace Website? Start With This Checklist

Websites get inherited in the least ceremonial way possible: a forwarded email with a login and the words "good luck".

If you've just inherited a Squarespace website, resist the urge to start rewriting the homepage. Spend your first hour on the things that can go wrong without making a sound. Most of them aren't visible on the site at all, which is exactly why they get missed.

Taking over a Squarespace site is an access problem before it's a design problem. The first hour is about establishing who owns the site, who else can still log in, where form submissions are landing, who controls the domain and what code the last person left behind. That matters more than it sounds. The government's Cyber Security Breaches Survey, published in April 2026 from a sample of 2,112 businesses, found 43% had identified a breach or attack in the previous 12 months, with phishing involved in 38% of cases. Dormant logins belonging to people who left two jobs ago are exactly the sort of loose end that causes trouble later. Work through the checklist below and you'll know what you've actually inherited.

1. Find out who owns the site

Every Squarespace site has one owner, usually the account that created it. The owner is the only person who can transfer ownership. Administrators can do almost everything else, but not that.

Go to Settings, then Permissions & Ownership, and look at who's listed as Owner. If it's a former employee's personal account or a designer who has moved on, sort it out now, while they can still be reached.

The process is set out in Squarespace's help article on changing ownership: the current owner invites you as a contributor, you accept, and they transfer ownership from the same panel, logging in again to confirm. Attached subscriptions such as Squarespace domains and Google Workspace move with the site. Squarespace Payments needs a separate step, and the new owner should update the billing details straight away.

2. Tidy up who else has access

While you're in Permissions & Ownership, read the contributor list properly. Ex-staff and agencies from two rebrands ago have a habit of lingering.

Squarespace's roles are more granular than most people expect: Administrator, Billing, Website Editor, Store Manager, Analytics, Comment Moderator, Email Campaigns Editor and Viewer. Remove anyone who doesn't need access, and give everyone who stays only the access they need. For context, the same government survey found 73% of UK businesses restrict admin rights and 47% require two-factor authentication, so tightening this up puts you in line with ordinary practice rather than marking you out as paranoid.

3. Test every form

By default, a Squarespace form sends submissions to the account email of the person who added it. On an inherited site, that could be someone who left a long time ago, which means enquiries may have been going somewhere nobody is looking.

Submit each form yourself. If nothing arrives, open the form block, go to the Content tab and change the Email Notification field to an inbox that someone checks. Each form can only send to one email address, so a shared inbox is better than a personal one. Still nothing? Check your spam folder for messages from form-submission@squarespace.info.

Newsletter sign-up blocks deserve the same treatment, since they may be connected to storage such as Mailchimp or Google Drive that the previous person set up.

4. Check the domain and the email that depends on it

Find out where the domain is registered. A Squarespace domain moves with site ownership. A domain registered somewhere else sits in a separate account, possibly in the previous person's name, and you'll need access to it, because that's where renewals and DNS settings live.

Lapsed domains take websites and email down with them. It's a memorable way to find out who had the login.

5. Open Code Injection and ask awkward questions

Site-wide scripts live in Code Injection, under Website Tools in the Pages panel. Individual pages can also carry their own code in their page settings. Go through both and list everything you find.

Some of it will be doing useful work, such as analytics or a booking widget. Some of it will be fossils. Universal Analytics stopped processing data on 1 July 2023, so an old tracking ID starting "UA-" is dead weight. If you can't tell what a script does, don't delete it on a hunch. Note it down, ask someone who can read it and test carefully.

6. Look for settings someone else chose

A few things are worth checking before you change anything:

• The site's version. Squarespace's help guide on finding your site's version tells you if the site runs on 7.0 or 7.1, which affects what's possible.

• Billing. Check the plan, the renewal date and whose payment card is on file. An expired card belonging to someone who has left can let the subscription lapse without anyone noticing.

• URL mappings, under Developer Tools in Settings, which redirect old web addresses. Leave them in place unless you know why they're there.

• Connected accounts for social media, email marketing and analytics, which may still be logged in as the previous person.

• The cookie banner, which decides whether non-essential cookies are restricted until visitors agree.

• Scheduled content, such as blog posts or email campaigns queued before the handover.

7. Duplicate the site before big changes

Squarespace doesn't have revision history, so once changes are saved there's no older version to go back to. If you're planning major work, owners and administrators can duplicate the site from the dashboard.

The copy includes pages, styles and code injection, but not domains, orders, analytics or contributors. It starts life as a new trial, doesn't sync back to the original and isn't available for sites over 150 pages. Treat it as a practice space rather than a backup.

8. Look at the numbers before you redesign anything

The temptation with an inherited site is to fix whatever annoys you first. Resist it for another ten minutes and open Analytics. The pages people visit most, and the ones enquiries come from, are the ones to protect while you learn the site.

A page you'd happily delete can turn out to be the one bringing in visitors from Google. Better to find that out now than after the redirect you forgot to add.

When to get a second pair of eyes

If this checklist raised more questions than it answered, that's normal. Inherited sites carry years of small decisions nobody wrote down: a plugin added for a campaign in 2022, a page hidden rather than deleted, custom CSS written by someone who left before the rebrand. You don't need to understand all of it on day one. You do need to know where the levers are, who else can pull them, and which pages the business actually depends on. Once those three things are clear, everything else becomes a normal to-do list rather than a series of surprises, and you can improve the site at whatever pace suits you.

We've written about the problems we find most often in Squarespace audits, and if you'd rather have someone go through your site properly, an audit and review gives you an independent view of what's there and what to fix first. To learn the site while the changes get made, Designer for a Day works well. If you want someone to call when things go wrong, that's what our support plans are for, and there's more on learning to manage a Squarespace site with confidence in our training guide.

FAQs

What should I check first when I take over a Squarespace website?

Start with access and ownership. Check who is listed as Owner in Permissions & Ownership, since only the owner can transfer ownership, and remove contributors who no longer need access. Then test every form on the site, because by default submissions go to the account email of whoever added the form, which on an inherited site can be someone who left years ago. After that, confirm who controls the domain and its renewal, review Code Injection for scripts nobody can explain, and check the billing details and renewal date. Duplicate the site before making major changes, because Squarespace keeps no revision history and there's no way back to yesterday's version.

How do I change where Squarespace form submissions are sent?

Open the form block in the editor, go to the Content tab and change the Email Notification field. By default, submissions go to the account email of whoever added the form, and each form can only send to one email address.

How do I transfer ownership of a Squarespace site?

The current owner invites the new person as a contributor. Once the invitation is accepted, the owner opens Permissions & Ownership, clicks their name under Owner, chooses Transfer Ownership, logs in again and confirms the new owner. Attached subscriptions such as Squarespace domains move with the site.

Can someone help me take over a Squarespace website?

Yes. A Squarespace specialist can audit an inherited site, sort out access and settings, and train you to manage it. Made by Dave offers Squarespace audits, Designer for a Day sessions and monthly support plans for this situation.