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Tidy Names

Connect GoDaddy

This guide walks you through generating a GoDaddy personal access token and connecting it to Tidy Names to sync your domains automatically.

Prerequisites

  • A GoDaddy account with one or more domains
  • A Tidy Names account with an organisation set up
Using an older API key and secret? GoDaddy has replaced classic API keys with personal access tokens. Existing connections keep syncing for now, but the classic keys are being retired - follow Rotating or replacing your token to move an existing connection across.

Step 1: Generate a Personal Access Token

Tidy Names authenticates to GoDaddy with a personal access token (PAT) - a single credential you scope to the permissions you want to grant, and which you can revoke on its own without disturbing anything else on your account.

Generate your token

  1. Go to the GoDaddy Developer Platform - Personal Access Tokens
  2. Sign in with your GoDaddy account
  3. Click Generate Token
  4. Give it a Name you will recognise later, such as "Tidy Names"
  5. Choose an Expiration. Tokens cannot be set to never expire - a longer lifetime means fewer rotations, and one year is the maximum.
  6. Under Scopes, expand Domains & DNS and tick domains.domain:read
  7. Click Generate token
  8. Copy the token immediately - GoDaddy shows the full value only once at creation. If you lose it, revoke it and generate a new one.
Grant the minimum. Tidy Names only ever reads from GoDaddy, so domains.domain:read is all it needs - that single scope covers your domain list, expiry dates, nameservers and DNS records. Approving the whole Domains & DNS bundle also grants write scopes such as domains.dns:update and domains.domain:delete, which Tidy Names never calls.

For more details, see GoDaddy's authentication documentation.

Step 2: Add the Connection in Tidy Names

  1. In Tidy Names, go to Connections in the sidebar
  2. Click Add Connection
  3. Select GoDaddy from the registrar list
  4. Paste your token into the Personal Access Token field
  5. Optionally set a Display Name (e.g. "GoDaddy Main Account")
  6. Click Test Connection - you should see a success message confirming the token is valid
  7. Click Save Connection

Tidy Names will immediately start importing your domains. This usually takes just a few seconds for most accounts.

Step 3: Verify Your Domains

After saving the connection, go to the Domains page. You should see all your GoDaddy domains listed with:

  • Domain name and status
  • Expiry date
  • Renewal cost
  • Auto-renew setting

Rotating or replacing your token

Every GoDaddy token expires - one year is the longest lifetime available - so plan on replacing yours before it lapses. You can update a connection in place, which keeps your synced domains along with the tags, portfolios and history attached to them.

  1. Generate a fresh token by repeating Step 1
  2. In Tidy Names, go to Connections
  3. Open the ⋯ menu on the GoDaddy connection and choose Update Credentials
  4. Paste the new token
  5. Click Test Connection, then Save Credentials
  6. Once the sync succeeds, revoke the old token in the GoDaddy Developer Platform

If a token expires before you replace it, the connection shows Reconnect required and pauses automatic syncing - your domain data stays exactly as it was. The connection card carries an Update Credentials button in that state; pasting a working token clears the error and resumes syncing.

Troubleshooting

Test Connection fails

  • Check that you pasted the whole token, with no extra spaces
  • Confirm the token carries the domains.domain:read scope. A token that authenticates but lacks the scope is rejected separately from a bad token, and Tidy Names says so in the error.
  • Verify the token is still listed as active in the GoDaddy Developer Platform - it may have expired
  • GoDaddy also requires the account to hold at least one domain before it will serve domain management calls

Missing domains

  • Only domains in your primary GoDaddy account are returned. Domains in sub-accounts or delegate access accounts may not appear.
  • Domains in a pending state (recently registered or transferring in) may not show up until fully active.

Revoking access

  • In Tidy Names: Go to Connections and remove the GoDaddy connection. This deletes the stored encrypted credentials, along with the domains imported through it. To swap in a new token without losing that data, use Update Credentials instead.
  • In GoDaddy: Go to the Developer Platform, find the token, and revoke it. Revoking takes effect immediately.

Next Steps