Enable Google sign-in for your portal
Your portal already offers a passwordless sign-in link and code by email. If you’d rather your customers also be able to sign in with their Google account, you can turn that on yourself, on every plan, at no extra cost.
Google sign-in on the portal uses your own Google OAuth client, not a shared one. That means the consent screen your customers see says your company’s name, not Forumcat’s, and your sign-in never leaves your domain.
Where it lives
Section titled “Where it lives”Open Settings → Advanced in the dashboard (/w/{your-forum}/settings). Visible
to the forum owner and admin only, see
Sign in to your dashboard for what
every role can reach. The Google sign-in section sits below custom scripts.
Set it up
Section titled “Set it up”- Copy the redirect URI. The Advanced tab always shows the exact URL you’ll need in the next step, with a copy button next to it. It’s built from your portal’s own address (your Forumcat subdomain, or your connected custom domain if you have one), so copy it fresh from here rather than typing it by hand.
- Create a Google OAuth client. In the Google Cloud console, create (or reuse) a project, then create an OAuth 2.0 Client ID of type Web application under APIs & Services → Credentials.
- Register the redirect URI. Paste the URL you copied in step 1 into that client’s Authorized redirect URIs list, exactly as shown, no trailing slash or extra characters added. This has to match character for character, or Google will reject the sign-in with a redirect URI mismatch.
- Copy your Client ID and Client secret from the same Google Cloud page.
- Back in the dashboard’s Google sign-in section, paste both into the Client ID and Client secret fields and click Save.
That’s it: a “Continue with Google” button now appears on your portal’s sign-in page, above the email form.
What your customers see
Section titled “What your customers see”Signing in with Google works exactly like the email flow otherwise: whichever Google account they choose is what identifies them here, one account per person per portal. A customer who first signed in with your emailed link or code, then later uses Google (or the other way around), lands in the same account as long as the email address matches and Google confirms it, no duplicate accounts. Google only shares a sign-in that it has itself verified, we don’t trust an address it hasn’t confirmed.
Your secret stays secret
Section titled “Your secret stays secret”Once saved, the client secret is never shown again anywhere in the dashboard, only a “Configured” state and your (non-secret) Client ID. It’s encrypted before it’s ever stored. If you need to change it, paste a new one; if you want to turn Google sign-in off, click Remove in that same section, existing customer accounts are unaffected either way, they just stop seeing the Google button.
If your redirect URI changes
Section titled “If your redirect URI changes”Connecting or disconnecting a custom domain changes the exact redirect URI Google needs (it always matches your portal’s current address). If you change your custom domain setup after already configuring Google sign-in, come back to this section, copy the new URI, and update it on your Google OAuth client too, or Google sign-in will stop working until you do.
- Available on every plan, it’s not a paid upgrade.
- Each forum’s Google sign-in is independent: if you run more than one forum, set this up separately for each one.
- This is separate from staff sign-in on the dashboard, which has its own Google option managed by us, see Sign in to your dashboard.