How-to · Updated October 11, 2026
Find a script or automated rule that keeps changing your Google Ads
Updated October 11, 2026
15 minutes
To find a script or automated rule changing your Google Ads, open Change history and filter by Tool, not by email alone. Then open Tools, Bulk actions, Rules and Scripts to see what runs and when, and pause it. If neither page lists it, it may run from a linked manager account.
Before you start
- Standard or Admin access to pause a rule or disable a script, since both are edits to the account.
- The days and rough times the changes appeared, such as which mornings bids, budgets or ads looked different.
Find the changes in change history
Read the Tool column before the email: rules and scripts act on behalf of the person who set them up, so a person's email can sit beside a change nobody made by hand.
- In Google Ads, click Campaigns, then Change history, and set the date range to cover the days things changed.
- Below the Change overview, filter by Tool to show one source of changes at a time, then by Change type, such as Bidding, Budget, Ad or Status.
- The same change at about the same hour on several days points to a schedule: scripts can run daily, weekly or monthly at a set hour, and Google says a rule can run up to 2 hours after its scheduled time.
- Note the email in User / Date & Time. Google says changes from rules and scripts owned by a manager account show the manager account user who made them.
Open the Rules and Scripts pages
Both live under Tools, Bulk actions, and each keeps its own log, so a rule or script can be matched to the rows you found.
- Click the Tools icon, open the Bulk actions drop-down and click Rules. An icon shows whether each rule is enabled.
- Click the Version history tab to see when each rule ran and how many changes it made, and click the results for details. Match the times with change history.
- To pause a rule, click the down-arrow next to its status icon. To read its conditions, click Edit and close the panel without saving: Google says editing a rule is the same as removing it and creating a new one.
- Back under Bulk actions, click Scripts. A green icon in the Status column means a script is enabled; the Frequency column shows its schedule.
- Click Script history, then the log statements next to a script, to see when it ran; Changes shows the detailed log. To stop a script, click Options, then Disable.
Pause or disable rather than remove. Google says removing a rule is permanent, and a paused rule can be turned back on.
Look in linked manager accounts
If neither page lists anything that matches, the rule or script may belong to a manager account, because Google says a client account sees only the bulk actions it owns. If the Tool filter showed Google Ads API or another tool's name, ask whoever runs that tool instead.
- Click the Admin icon, then Access and security, then the Managers tab, to see which manager accounts are linked.
- Ask whoever runs each one to open Tools, Bulk actions, Rules and Scripts in the manager account. If that manager account sits under another manager account, ask about the one above too: Google says bulk actions a top-level manager owns are visible only in that account.
- Give them the times you noted. Google says a manager account's rules run on the manager account's time zone, not yours, so the hour you see can differ from the hour the rule was set for.
Check it worked
Over the next few days, filter Change history by Tool for the hours the changes used to appear. The repeating rows should stop, and a paused rule's Version history should show no new runs.
If it continues, ask everyone listed under Access and security what they run.
Rules and scripts set up by someone who has left
Google says rules are created on behalf of the user who sets them up, and since July 2021 a rule created by a user who no longer has access keeps running.
Scripts differ. Google's developer documentation says that if a script's original author is disassociated from the account, the script stops running but stays listed until someone with access authorizes it again. Review both lists after a staff member or an outside company leaves.
Undoing what a rule changed
On the Rules page, open Version history and click Undo in the Actions column. A preview shows what the undo will change.
It works for changes made by campaign, ad group, ad and keyword rules.
Only the most recent run of each rule can be undone; undo it first to reach an earlier one.
Changes made by hand after the rule ran are kept, and an undo cannot be redone.