In Unity Catalog, the Metastore Admin role has the highest level of authority within a metastore and is responsible for governing all data assets registered in that metastore. Metastore admins can transfer ownership of catalogs, manage privileges across all securable objects (catalogs, schemas, tables, views), and administer storage credentials, external locations, and Delta Sharing objects such as shares and recipients.
This makes the role essential when a platform owner departs and continuity must be maintained at an organizational level. Workspace admins (option B) manage workspace-level settings but do not automatically have authority over Unity Catalog ownership unless explicitly granted. Catalog owners (option D) are limited to a single catalog and cannot perform actions across the entire metastore. Account admins (option A) operate at the account level and are primarily responsible for creating metastores and assigning admins, not for day-to-day governance within an existing metastore. Databricks documentation clearly defines the Metastore Admin as the role required to centrally manage ownership, privileges, and data sharing across the metastore in Databricks.