YouTube Access Blocking in Google Workspace [5 Admin Options]

How to Block YouTube Access as a K12 Google Admin?

YouTube access blocking can be tricky when identifying platforms you want to disable for your users.

That’s because users today, whether teachers or students, find it packed with incredibly useful resources for school or work assignments.

However, YouTube can also be quite a distraction in the classroom, if not used for the right, educational purposes.

If you’re a K-12 school admin who needs more control over students’ YouTube access, this post is for you.

Below are five admin options to regulate YouTube access across your domain more easily (and granularly!).

5 Admin Options for YouTube Access Blocking in Google Workspace

 1. Set a YouTube Time Limit for Your Users 

One way to better manage YouTube access for your users without worrying about it consuming their time is by setting time limits as follows:

• Allow YouTube access for your users only during certain times of the day.
  OR
• Limit the number of hours users can spend on YouTube.

Schools, in particular, find this option handy when students need YouTube access for specific school hours only. To configure this YouTube time limit, you’ll need the help of a third-party tool like GAT Shield.

Additionally, you can set limits for specific online content categories (e.g., Entertainment or Gaming) or ULRs (e.g., https://www.youtube.com/shorts/) during school hours while allowing access to educational content categories.

2. Turn YouTube OFF for Specific OUs or Groups ONLY 

Let’s say you want to get more ‘’user-granular’’ and restrict YouTube access to some of your domain’s users only.

In that case, you can add those users to a specific access group or organization unit (OU) and turn YouTube off for it.

Note: when you turn YouTube off within Google Workspace for Education, users signed in, regardless of age, can’t use YouTube.com or YouTube apps.

However, they can still view embedded YouTube videos assigned in Google products, such as Google Classroom. All users can also continue to link and preview videos in Docs.

Alternatively, Google has four YouTube permission settings in the Admin console that you can use to push out different access levels to your users: strict and moderate restricted access, unrestricted access, and the “Can approve videos” setting.

As manually approving or blocking online content has become an increasingly requested admin job, teachers can now handle this during their classroom sessions as they go. This option is available within the Teacher Assist tool.

3. Block YouTube for a Specific Student or User

What if you have just one particular user you want to block from YouTube?

Well, here you have three options:

1. Put them in a separate OU: Create a new child OU that inherits everything their OU (where you have your other user or grade students) has, but remove YouTube access.

This will help you preserve any automation you may have in place while removing YouTube access for that one user.

2. Override the Access Group settings: Turn YouTube access on for specific students while keeping it off for the rest of the student OU without disturbing your organizational structure.

1. Turn YouTube off for the student OU.
2. Create a new group for users you want to unblock.
3. Turn YouTube on in that group: Google Admin Console > Apps > Additional Google Services > YouTube > Service Status > ON for everyone.

3. Use a third-party URL filtering tool: A more hassle-free solution would be to completely block YouTube for specific users using a URL filtering tool like GAT Shield.

4. Restrict YouTube Access by Age (Google Workspace for Education only):

Speaking of getting granular, as of September 1, 2021, users identified in the admin console below the age of 18 get a more restricted YouTube experience. Learn more about what they can’t do here.

This setting gives you a better way to regulate how YouTube is being used across your school’s domain by setting your staff’s accounts to 18+ and students’ accounts to under 18. Here’s how:

1. Log in to the Admin Console.
2. Choose which OU you want to update.
3. Click Account > Account Settings > Age-based access settings.
4. Select “Some or all users are under 18” for student OUs.

Remember, admins need to identify teachers and staff as 18+; otherwise, they’ll lose access to any teaching content they created on YouTube.

5. Completely Block YouTube for ALL Users 

Turning YouTube off for your users from the admin console doesn’t mean they won’t be able to access the platform at all. They can still access it by opening an incognito window or signing out of the Google account.

To prevent this, you can disallow Incognito mode for the entire domain or specific users. Admins can also force students to sign in to their Chromebooks to browse using an automated workflow created in GAT Flow.

If you still need to completely block YouTube access for all users across your domain, then you’ll need the help of a third-party URL filtering tool to do that.

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Closing Thoughts

If you choose options 1 or 2, your next steps are:

▪️ Audit YouTube Activity: This will help you get more insight into what your users are watching on YouTube (and make a more informed decision about student online activity). You can use a tool like GAT Shield to achieve that.

▪️ Blocking Inappropriate Results on YouTube: Always make sure that you’re blocking explicit and harmful content on YouTube to protect student safety and stay CIPA-compliant.

Have a different YouTube access management challenge we haven’t covered in this post? Give us a shout at help@gatlabs.com, we’ll be happy to help you out.