Control access to Google services by age

This feature is only available to Google Workspace for Education editions.

To make it easier to tailor experiences for your users, you can set access to some Google services based on age. The default age-based access setting depends on your institution type:

• Primary and secondary education institutions—All users not designated as 18 and over get an age-restricted experience for some Google services.
• Higher education institutions—Users not designated as under the age of 18 have no additional restrictions for Google services. However, administrators in those organizations are required to identify any users under the age of 18.

Understand the default settings

As an administrator, you should identify users in your organization who are 18 years of age and older. If you don't:

• All users in primary and secondary institutions who are not designated as over 18 default to under 18 and get a restricted experience in some Google services.
• Users under the age of 18 lose access to certain services and features. Data created by these users in Additional Services or features that they no longer have access to might be deleted. Before the data is deleted, you can let users export their data with Google Takeout. Learn how to allow or block Google Takeout.
• Services without an on or off control are set to Restricted for users who aren't designated as over 18. You can't change this setting for those users. For details, go to Manage access to services that aren't controlled individually.

The age-based access setting applies to the top-level organization. However, you can identify users, such as teachers and staff, as over or under the age of 18 by putting them in an organizational unit or access group and setting the correct age level. For details, go to Customize the setting for your organization (below).

App restrictions for users under 18

Users designated as under the age of 18 have restrictions in some Google services when they're signed in to their Google Workspace for Education account. Also, some services aren't available to users under the age of 18.

Expand all  |  Collapse all

Customize the setting for your organization

You can move users to an organizational unit or access group and apply age-based settings. For more details, go to Configuration groups for use by admins.

If you use organizational units or access groups:

• Change the setting of any staff (including an administrator), teacher, and faculty organizational unit or configuration group to be 18 or older. Be sure that all users in the organizational unit or group are 18 years of age or older.
• Move any users under the age of 18 in your staff, teacher, or faculty organizational units or access groups to another organizational unit or group and apply the appropriate age-level setting. 
• For higher education institutions, if you have users under the age of 18, you must add them to an organizational unit or group and apply the appropriate age-level setting.

Note: If you delete a user, you also delete the information regarding the age-based access setting for their account.

Set age-based access to Google services

You can designate your users’ age level in the Admin console. If you don’t, all users without an age designation get the default experience for your institution type. You can change the designation to reflect the accurate age of the user, if the default does not match.

Note that when you change a user’s age designation from over 18 to under 18, they lose access to certain services and features. Starting 30 days after the age designation change, data they created in Additional Services or features that they no longer have access to will begin to be deleted. If you mistakenly change a user’s age designation from over 18 to under 18, you can revert the change within 30 days and their data will not be deleted.

Users can export their data before it is deleted by using Google Takeout for services you allow Google Takeout for. Learn more about turning on Google Takeout.

Before you begin: To be sure that your institution gets the correct default age designation, check that you set the correct organization type in your Google Admin console. For details, go to Select your organization type for Google Workspace for Education.

To set age-based access:

1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

   Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).

2. From the Admin console Home page, click Account settingsAge-based access settings.
3. (Optional) To apply the setting only to some users, at the side, select an organizational unit (often used for departments) or configuration group (advanced). Show me how

   Group settings override organizational units. Learn more

4. For Choose an appropriate age label, choose an option:
   • Some or all users are under 18 years of age
   • All users are 18 or older
5. Click Save. Or, you might click Override for an organizational unit.

   To later restore the inherited value, click Inherit (or Unset for a group).