# Failed to list imported projects: permission denied in AI Studio > AI Studio refused your signed-in account without naming the check. Google staff point to age, region or verification flags, not IAM roles. Check them in order. - URL: https://blog.laozhang.ai/en/posts/failed-to-list-imported-projects-permission-denied - Published: 2026-11-11 - Updated: 2026-11-11 - Author: LaoZhang AI Team (https://blog.laozhang.ai/en/about) - Topic: API Guides - Tags: Google AI Studio, Gemini API, Permission Denied, API Key, Age Verification, Troubleshooting --- "Failed to list imported projects: permission denied. Please try again." is a toast from Google AI Studio. It appears when AI Studio asks its server for the Google Cloud projects you imported and the server refuses the request. The refusal most likely comes after AI Studio has recognized your signed-in account, so this is probably not a broken session. That is an inference from a check described below, in which a missing sign-in produced a different message. The sentence also doesn't say which check refused you, and "Please try again." is fixed text that AI Studio attaches to every error of this kind, so trying again rarely changes anything. If you are already the project Owner and the Gemini API is enabled, skip the IAM advice. In October 2026 a Google staff member said these permission-denied errors point to an account or project verification flag in AI Studio, not a Cloud IAM role. Start with the account checks instead. Complete Google's age verification at myaccount.google.com/age-verification. Open AI Studio from a country on Google's supported-regions list with any VPN, proxy or iCloud Private Relay turned off. Then look for a "Verification needed", "Restricted" or "Unavailable" status or a banner on the Projects and Billing pages. Google staff say to try again "in a few hours" after verifying. Stop there if those checks pass and another Google account works on the same computer and network. Further changes in your browser or project are unlikely to change the result. Send the "Gemini API & Google AI Studio Location Issue Report" form that Google staff link on the forum. The other two sentences, "Failed to list API keys" and "Failed to call the Gemini API", follow the same rule but each adds one condition of its own, covered in separate sections below. ## How AI Studio builds "permission denied. Please try again." The sentence has two parts: a prefix naming the AI Studio call that failed, and a suffix naming the status code the server sent back. LaoZhang AI Blog found this on November 11, 2026 by downloading and reading AI Studio's production front-end script (version `MakerSuite.en.UlL836zczQE`). It was one of four read-only checks run that day, using one personal Google account that has working AI Studio access and no imported projects. The split is why so many sibling sentences end the same way: | Prefix on screen | AI Studio call that failed | What AI Studio was doing | | --- | --- | --- | | Failed to list imported projects | ListImportedProjects | Loading the projects you added from Google Cloud | | Failed to list API keys | ListCloudApiKeys | Loading keys for your imported projects | | Failed to call the Gemini API | ProxyStreamedCall, ProxyUnaryCall | Sending a request to Gemini through AI Studio | | Failed to list projects | ListCloudProjects | Loading your Cloud projects in the Import projects dialog | | Failed to list models | ListModels | Loading the model list | | Failed to create project | CreateCloudProject | Creating a new project | | Failed to generate API key | GenerateCloudApiKey | Creating a key | | Failed to import projects | ImportProjects | Importing selected Cloud projects | | Failed to list bundled Applications | ListBundledApplets | Loading apps | | Failed to generate content | GenerateContent | Generating a response | The suffix tells you what kind of refusal it was. Status code 7 (PERMISSION_DENIED) becomes ": permission denied. Please try again.", code 16 becomes ": authentication error", code 8 ": user has exceeded quota" and code 14 ": service is unavailable". A quota or outage message is a different problem, even when the prefix matches. ![How the AI Studio toast is built: the prefix names the failed call, such as ListImportedProjects, and the suffix comes from the status code, with code 7 giving "permission denied. Please try again." and code 16 giving "authentication error"](https://blog.laozhang.ai/posts/en/failed-to-list-imported-projects-permission-denied/img/toast-prefix-suffix.webp) For code 7, the script shows the server's own message only when the response carries a specific detail, such as "The Generative Language API is not enabled" or "Account verification required to restore access". An empty message, "permission denied" or "the caller does not have permission" counts as generic and becomes the bare suffix. That leads to an inference, not something Google documents: if you see only "permission denied. Please try again.", the server didn't tell AI Studio which check failed, so the screen can't tell you either. The second check, the same day, sent the two listing calls with no sign-in at all. Both returned HTTP 401 with status code 16 and the reason CREDENTIALS_MISSING, which AI Studio words as "authentication error". The second inference follows from that: "permission denied" means the request was signed in and identified, and only then refused. The third and fourth checks opened the Projects and API Keys pages on that personal account and called the Gemini API with no key and with a made-up key; those results are in the sections below. Because the account has working access, the denied state itself was not reproduced. Everything below about why accounts get refused comes from Google's documentation and from Google staff on the forum. ## Failed to list imported projects: permission denied. Please try again. This sentence means AI Studio couldn't load your imported projects at all. In AI Studio, "imported projects" are the Google Cloud projects you added to AI Studio with the Import projects button. It is not about uploaded files. On a working account, as of November 11, 2026, ListImportedProjects ran when the Projects page loaded and again when the API Keys page loaded. So the toast can appear on either page, and on anything that shows a project picker. Don't confuse it with an empty list. A working account with nothing imported sees an empty table and no toast, with this text on Projects: "Can't find your projects here? Only imported projects appear here. If you don't see your projects, you can import projects from Google Cloud on this page." The API Keys page says "Can't find your API keys here? This list only shows API keys for projects imported into Google AI Studio." and shows an Import projects button. That is the normal state before you import anything. New users get a default project after accepting the Terms of Service, but anyone who already had a Google Cloud account gets none and has to import one, according to [Google's AI Studio API key documentation](https://aistudio.google.com/docs/api-key). Importing a project only needs `resourcemanager.projects.get` on it, per the [IAM table in Google's AI Studio troubleshooting page](https://aistudio.google.com/docs/troubleshoot-ai-studio#iam-permissions), and the Owner, Editor and Viewer roles all include it. If you hold one of those roles on your projects, the role isn't what's refusing the list. That is even clearer when the same toast comes with "Failed to list models" or "Failed to list projects", a pattern many forum reports describe. Those calls don't depend on any one project, so they point to your account. If you have reached the import limit, AI Studio names it instead: "You have reached the maximum number of imported projects allowed in AI Studio." ## Owner role and Gemini API enabled, still permission denied Being Owner doesn't help when the refusal isn't about roles. Google's [AI Studio troubleshooting page](https://aistudio.google.com/docs/troubleshoot-ai-studio#other-access-checks) lists checks beyond IAM: automated security checks, phone verification, acceptance of the Terms, a supported region, age 18 or older, and a project not flagged for abuse. It says failing any of them can produce "a PERMISSION_DENIED or access restriction error in the AI Studio interface". It does not say which check produces which message. On October 5, 2026, Google staff answered an Owner whose age verification was complete. They said these errors and the Available Regions redirect "indicate an account or project verification flag in AI Studio rather than a Cloud IAM role issue", in a [Google AI Developers Forum thread about permission denied despite Project Owner access](https://discuss.ai.google.dev/t/ai-studio-permission-denied-for-project-and-model-lists-despite-project-owner-access/186768). The best-known older answer says the opposite. A volunteer Product Expert wrote it in August 2025, and it calls IAM permissions the "most common cause" in a [Google Help community thread titled "How to fix Permission denied in AI Studio"](https://support.google.com/gemini/thread/368211468/how-to-fix-permission-denied-in-ai-studio?hl=en). That answer is older than the 2026 age-verification and phone-verification checks, and the person asking it was failing to create a key, not to list projects. For a reader who has already confirmed the Owner role, the 2026 staff answer is the one that applies. The 26 forum threads from June 26 to November 9, 2026 that report these errors show the same pattern. In nine of them the reporter had already confirmed the Owner role and the Generative Language API, and in six the reporter had finished age verification. In others, Google Cloud console and `gcloud projects list` showed the project while AI Studio couldn't. Vertex AI worked on the same project, or another Google account worked on the same computer and network. One account got access back for one to two hours and was refused again with nothing changed. In those 26 threads, no original poster came back to say that a particular step fixed it. Region and age have also been tangled on Google's side. On October 27, 2026, a Google employee wrote that "AI Studio was mixing up location issues with age checks" and that a change that week would ask affected users to complete age checks, in the [forum thread about AI Studio not recognizing a Google AI Pro subscription](https://discuss.ai.google.dev/t/google-ai-studio-cannot-recognize-active-google-ai-pro-subscription-permission-denied-available-regions-redirect/186979). Google's release notes have no entry for it, and later staff replies still use the older checklist. ## Which AI Studio checks can refuse you, and how to check each one Every row below is a check from Google's documentation, with where you can see whether it applies to you. As of November 11, 2026, Google publishes no way to tell which one refused a given account: | Check | Where to look | What clears it | | --- | --- | --- | | Age 18 or older | myaccount.google.com/birthday and myaccount.google.com/age-verification. An ID-verified birthday must match the account. Workspace for Education accounts need an administrator to mark them 18+ | Complete age verification | | Supported region | [Google's list of available regions for AI Studio and the Gemini API](https://aistudio.google.com/docs/available-regions). Russia, mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao, Belarus and Iran are among the places not on it | Nothing on your account changes this. If your country is on the list, turn off VPN, proxy and iCloud Private Relay, as Google staff ask | | Terms of Service | AI Studio names this one: "The Terms of Service have not been accepted" | Accept the Terms when AI Studio prompts you | | Project verification (free tier on extra projects or projects created outside AI Studio) | "Verification needed" next to the project on the Projects page | Scan the QR code with an Android phone with Google Play services or an iPhone on iOS 16.4+, as Owner or Editor. Billing is the documented alternative | | Account verification (unusual activity) | "Account verification required to restore access" with a Verify your account link | Open aistudio.google.com/verify-account and scan its QR code with a phone. Desktops and emulators can't complete it | | Automated security checks | No visible status | One attempt in a clean private window, as described under retrying below | | Project or account flag | "Restricted" or "Unavailable" on the project, banners on Projects and Billing, or email to the account | Appeal a flagged or suspended project in Google Cloud console. Staff's last resort is prepay credits or a Cloud Billing account, which ends free-tier quota | | Past-due billing | "Payment needed" on the project, which means its Cloud Billing account is past due | Settle the balance or update the payment method on that billing account. No appeal is involved | Go in the order of the table. Age and region come first because Google staff's template replies on these threads open with them, and because a region problem can't be fixed from your side. The Terms and verification rows show their own message or a status on the Projects page. If you see only the bare sentence and no status, start with the rows that have no message of their own: age, region, the security checks and a flag. Phone verification details, including the limit on how many projects or accounts one phone can verify in a rolling period, are on [Google's AI Studio verification page](https://aistudio.google.com/docs/verification). Creating a new key in the same project doesn't get around any of them. Two refusals look similar but are separate cases. A Workspace account whose administrator turned AI Studio off gets a message saying it does not "have access to Google AI Studio" and should contact the Organization Administrator. A "403 Access Restricted" page means use that doesn't follow the Terms of Service, most often from an unsupported region. ## Failed to list API keys: permission denied. Please try again. This one has a real IAM condition that the other two don't. Listing keys for a project needs `resourcemanager.projects.get`, `apikeys.keys.list` and `serviceusage.services.get`, and the project must have the Generative Language API enabled. Google's [IAM table for AI Studio](https://aistudio.google.com/docs/troubleshoot-ai-studio#iam-permissions) lists these, and notes that Viewer can see keys but not create, change or delete them. If the toast appears for a project someone else owns, or for one in a company organization where your role is unclear, check that role in Google Cloud console under IAM before anything else. If you are Owner or Editor and the API is enabled, treat it like the imported-projects sentence. That is especially true when it shows up together with "Failed to list imported projects" or "Failed to list models". One reporter on the forum could see the key in Google Cloud console while AI Studio couldn't list it, which is an account-level refusal, not a missing key. A key that is merely missing from the list is a different matter. AI Studio shows only keys that are unrestricted or restricted to the Generative Language API, and at most 100 keys and 50 projects. When AI Studio itself won't load, you can still create a key in Google Cloud console (Google says it must be bound to a service account). How to create, store and test a key once the pages work is in [Google AI Studio API Key: Is It Free? Create, Secure, Verify](https://blog.laozhang.ai/en/posts/google-ai-studio-api-key). What the free tier includes is in [Gemini API Free Tier 2026: Limits, Free Models, and Free API Keys](https://blog.laozhang.ai/en/posts/gemini-api-free-tier), and what is still free inside AI Studio is in [Google AI Studio Free Access: What's Still Free and What Isn't](https://blog.laozhang.ai/en/posts/ai-studio-complete-access-guide). ## Failed to call the Gemini API: permission denied. Please try again. This prefix belongs to AI Studio's proxy calls (ProxyStreamedCall and ProxyUnaryCall), which send requests to Gemini on your behalf. The reports that mention the sentence come from apps built in AI Studio's Build mode. In Build mode, Google keeps the Gemini API key as a server-side secret, and apps built before May 14, 2026 move to that setup the next time their Gemini features are edited, according to [Google's AI Studio Build mode documentation](https://aistudio.google.com/docs/aistudio-build-mode). One fix has been reported. On September 25, 2026, a note.com author saw the sentence when running an older Build app. After making the app print the raw error, they found `{"error":{"code":403,"message":"The caller does not have permission.","status":"PERMISSION_DENIED"}}`. The app called `gemini-3-flash-preview`, and switching the model to `gemini-3.8-flash` made it work again, as described in [rorosuke's note.com post about the Gemini API error in an AI Studio app](https://note.com/rorosuke/n/nd623c32a81b3). The author adds that a 403 alone doesn't prove a model was retired. It fits the script: "The caller does not have permission" is one of the server messages AI Studio hides behind the bare sentence. So in your own app, log the full error and check the model ID before you change anything about your account. If the other two toasts also appear on the same account, the app isn't the cause, so go back to the checks above. If the 403 comes back to your own code or SDK rather than in AI Studio's interface, that's a different problem with its own steps. [Gemini API Key Permission Denied: Fix 403 by Error Source (2026)](https://blog.laozhang.ai/en/posts/gemini-api-key-permission-denied) covers it. For reference, in the same November 11, 2026 check, the Gemini API returned HTTP 403 "Permission denied on the service." for a request with no key at all, and HTTP 400 "API key not valid" for a made-up key. So a mistyped key is a 400, not this 403. ## Does retrying, Incognito or clearing cookies fix permission denied? Not by itself. Clearing cookies, signing out and opening Incognito all reset your session. If the inference above is right, a session problem would show as "authentication error" (code 16), not "permission denied" (code 7). Retrying the same refused request also doesn't help. Google's [Gemini API troubleshooting page](https://aistudio.google.com/docs/troubleshooting#retry-strategy) says not to retry client errors such as 400, 402 and 403. A single clean attempt after you finish verification is still worth making, and Google staff ask for it. On November 5, 2026, one staff reply said to sign out and back in or open an Incognito window after age verification. Replies on October 27 and November 3 asked for a private window with extensions off, developer tools closed, and no VPN, proxy, custom user agent or browser automation. That clean window matters because automated security checks are on Google's list. Make that one attempt after the waiting period, not a loop of refreshes. ## When to stop and report AI Studio permission denied to Google Stop changing settings once age verification is done, you're in a supported country with no VPN or proxy, the Projects page shows no status or banner, and the toast is still there after a few hours. That is especially true if another Google account works on the same computer and network. At that point the refusal is on Google's side, and only Google can lift it. Report it in this order: ![Four account checks in order: age verification, supported region with VPN off, Projects and Billing status, then one retry a few hours later; if another account works on the same computer and network, stop and report to Google](https://blog.laozhang.ai/posts/en/failed-to-list-imported-projects-permission-denied/img/account-checks-order.webp) 1. Collect a screenshot of the toast, your Project ID, the list of checks you have already done, and a HAR file of the page load (Chrome DevTools, Network tab, export HAR). A HAR file contains session data, so send it only by direct message when staff ask for it, never in a public post. 2. If you're in a supported country and still blocked, fill in the "Gemini API & Google AI Studio Location Issue Report" form. Google staff linked it in forum replies on October 7, 8 and 13, 2026, including in the [forum thread about permission denied despite Project Owner access](https://discuss.ai.google.dev/t/ai-studio-permission-denied-for-project-and-model-lists-despite-project-owner-access/186768). 3. If AI Studio works on one network and not on another, use the "Report IP problems" page that staff point to for blocks tied to an IP address. 4. If a project shows Restricted, Unavailable or a suspension banner, appeal it in Google Cloud console, following Google Cloud's project suspension guidelines. 5. Otherwise, post on the Google AI Developers Forum with the details from step 1. Threads close automatically 60 days after the last reply, so reply to keep yours open while you wait. Google staff said on September 15, 2026 that one flagged account needed a billing account linked to "resume service". That reporter answered that they couldn't reach the billing step because the pages themselves failed. Adding billing is therefore a step for someone whose Billing page still loads. ## Google AI Studio permission denied: other questions ### Why is the message in English when my AI Studio is in another language? The three sentences are not translated. In the Japanese, Korean, Spanish (Latin America) and Simplified Chinese interface scripts, as of November 11, 2026, "Failed to list imported projects", "Failed to list API keys", "Failed to call the Gemini API" and "permission denied. Please try again." are all in English. The Playground's own message for the same status code is translated. In English it reads "Permission denied. Please check your account permissions and project settings." ### Will creating a new project or API key get around permission denied? No. Google's verification and troubleshooting pages both say a new key in the same project doesn't change an unverified or ineligible status, and any additional project, or one created outside AI Studio, needs project verification for the free tier anyway. Linking billing moves a project to the paid tier but, per [Google's Gemini API troubleshooting page](https://aistudio.google.com/docs/troubleshooting#project-unavailable), it doesn't unlock free quota. ## Sources External pages this guide links to, in the order they appear. Last updated 2026-11-11. - [Google's AI Studio API key documentation](https://aistudio.google.com/docs/api-key) (aistudio.google.com) - [IAM table in Google's AI Studio troubleshooting page](https://aistudio.google.com/docs/troubleshoot-ai-studio) (aistudio.google.com) - [Google AI Developers Forum thread about permission denied despite Project Owner access](https://discuss.ai.google.dev/t/ai-studio-permission-denied-for-project-and-model-lists-despite-project-owner-access/186768) (discuss.ai.google.dev) - [Google Help community thread titled "How to fix Permission denied in AI Studio"](https://support.google.com/gemini/thread/368211468/how-to-fix-permission-denied-in-ai-studio?hl=en) (support.google.com) - [forum thread about AI Studio not recognizing a Google AI Pro subscription](https://discuss.ai.google.dev/t/google-ai-studio-cannot-recognize-active-google-ai-pro-subscription-permission-denied-available-regions-redirect/186979) (discuss.ai.google.dev) - [Google's list of available regions for AI Studio and the Gemini API](https://aistudio.google.com/docs/available-regions) (aistudio.google.com) - [Google's AI Studio verification page](https://aistudio.google.com/docs/verification) (aistudio.google.com) - [Google's AI Studio Build mode documentation](https://aistudio.google.com/docs/aistudio-build-mode) (aistudio.google.com) - [rorosuke's note.com post about the Gemini API error in an AI Studio app](https://note.com/rorosuke/n/nd623c32a81b3) (note.com) - [Gemini API troubleshooting page](https://aistudio.google.com/docs/troubleshooting) (aistudio.google.com)