Manage YouTube across Your School or District with confidence

YouTube is off by default for education accounts at K-12 schools. If your school or district uses K-12 Google Workspace for Education accounts and YouTube is currently enabled, follow these steps to turn YouTube off: 

1. Make sure you’re logged into your Google Workspace for Education account with your administrator credentials and navigate to your Google Admin Console. 
2. Go to Apps on the navigation menu on the left hand side of the screen.
3. Select Additional Google Services, scroll down to find YouTube listed alphabetically (it may be on the last page), and click YouTube.
4. Click Service Status and select, “OFF for everyone”, then click save.  

If you choose to enable access for some K-12 Google Workspace for Education account users, follow these steps:

1. Make sure you’re logged into your Google Workspace for Education account with your administrator credentials and navigate to your Google Admin Console.
2. Go to Apps on the navigation menu on the left hand side of the screen. 
3. Select Additional Google Services, scroll down to find YouTube listed alphabetically (it may be on the last page), and click YouTube.
4. Click Service Status and select the target user group under Organizational Units. 
5. Click “On”, then save by pressing “Override”. 
6. This will trigger the consent screen which requires you to acknowledge that you have read and agree to the consent statement to be able to click “turn on”, and enable YouTube for the selected group.
   

Note: If YouTube is enabled for teachers and disabled for students, teachers can show and assign YouTube videos to students by embedding videos with YouTube’s Player for Education on compatible edtech tools. 

For all other edtech tools, please speak with your tool’s support team.

Yes, if your school or district uses K-12 Google Workspace for Education accounts, follow these steps to turn YouTube on for just teachers: 

1. Make sure you’re logged into your Google Workspace for Education account with your administrator credentials and navigate to your Google Admin Console. 
2. Go to Apps on the navigation menu on the left hand side of the screen.
3. Select Additional Google Services, scroll down to find YouTube listed alphabetically (it may be on the last page), and click YouTube.
4. Click Service Status and select teachers under Organizational Units. 
5. Click “On”, then save by pressing “Override”. 
6. This will trigger the consent screen which requires you to acknowledge that you have read and agree to the consent statement to be able to click “turn on”, and enable YouTube for teachers.

1. Next, select students under Organizational Units. 
2. Review Service Status for students. Under default settings, YouTube is turned off for under 18 users. If Service Status is “On”, click “Off”, then save. 
3. If you’d like to enable YouTube for some student groups, select the Organizational Unit under Students that you’d like to enable YouTube for (e.g. High School). 
4. Click “On”, then save by pressing “Override”. 
5. This will trigger the consent screen which requires you to acknowledge that you have read and agree to the consent statement to be able to click “turn on”, and enable YouTube for the selected group of students.
   

Note: If you choose to enable access for students, you must first get parental consent; this also requires annual re-verification.

Yes, you can tailor user settings to specific user groups. By sorting users into organizational units (or “groups”) within the Google Admin Console, administrators can apply tailored content settings to each group. For example, if students are grouped by grade level, administrators can customize permissions to ensure that only permitted grades have access.

1. Make sure you’re logged into your Google Workspace for Education account with your administrator credentials and navigate to your Google Admin Console. 
2. Go to Apps on the navigation menu on the left hand side of the screen.
3. Select Additional Google Services, scroll down to find YouTube listed alphabetically (it may be on the last page), and click YouTube.
4. Click Service Status and select the Organizational Unit under Students that you’d like to enable YouTube for (e.g. High School). 
5. Click “On”, then save by pressing “Override”. 
6. This will trigger the consent screen which requires you to acknowledge that you have read and agree to the consent statement to be able to click “turn on”, and enable YouTube for the selected group of students.
   

Note: If you choose to enable access for students, you must first get parental consent; this also requires annual re-verification.

At schools where YouTube access is permitted, tech administrators can enforce content restrictions network-wide and across all managed devices, even for guest networks or users that are not signed into a Google Workspace for Education account. You can prevent all users on your network from seeing videos that fall outside content settings designated by age groups by updating your local DNS settings or injecting HTTP headers into requests heading toward YouTube services.

Note: Restrictions are only enforced on the configured network and do not extend to external or home networks, which are not managed by the school. 

At schools where YouTube access is permitted and that use K-12 Google Workspace for Education accounts, tech administrators can apply tailored content settings by user groups. For example, if students are grouped into organizational units by grade level, settings can be adjusted to align with age-appropriate content ratings for that specific grade. To configure content restrictions by user group, follow these steps:

1. Log into your Google Workspace for Education account using administrator credentials and navigate to Google Workspace Admin Console. 
2. Go to Apps on the navigation menu on the left hand side of the screen.
3. Select “Additional Google Services”, scroll down to find YouTube listed alphabetically (it may be on the last page), and click YouTube.
4. Scroll down and click on “Permissions”. 
5. Select the Organizational Unit you want to customize content restrictions for (Click here to learn how to configure Organizational Units for different user groups).  
6. Select the restriction permissions you prefer under “Permissions at this level”. 
7. Click “Save”.
8. Go back to “Settings for YouTube” and navigate to Content Settings. 
9. Click Setup, then check the box that says, “Signed in users in your organization can only watch restricted and approved videos” and click “Save”. 
   

Note: Tech administrators can choose between strict restricted YouTube access (generally aligns with TV and movie content ratings for viewers 9+), moderate restricted YouTube access (generally aligns with TV and movie content ratings for viewers 13+) and Unrestricted YouTube access (Users over 18 can access all videos. Users under 18 won’t have access to content marked 18+.).

Yes, YouTube offers Player for Education - an embedded video player that integrates with the most widely used edtech tools and delivers a simplified viewing experience with no ads or recommendations. If YouTube is disabled for students or youtube.com is blocked on the school network, and teachers exclusively embed videos to play with YouTube’s Player for Education, students will only see YouTube videos that have been preselected by their teachers.

To ensure a fully distraction-free YouTube viewing experience, teachers can embed YouTube videos with YouTube’s Player for Education on compatible edtech tools.

Instructure, Edpuzzle, GoGuardian, HonorEd, Google Workspace for Education, Kahoot!, Newsela, Screencastify, Seesaw, Teachmint, Wayground, WeVideo, and Google Classroom currently integrate with YouTube’s Player for Education.

Note: This list may change over time.

Students only see the YouTube video that was preselected by their teacher. The viewing experience is simplified and distraction-free, limiting student attention to the assigned content. 

When students browse youtube.com while logged into their Google Workspace for Education account, they are able to search YouTube’s library of content and watch videos but there are safety defaults applied to their viewing experience. Comments, live chat, live streams, video publishing, purchases, and standalone apps (YouTube Music, Studio, TV, VR) are all disabled. Additionally, students can only view a limited set of videos based on the content settings chosen by their school’s tech administrator. 

The recommended way for teachers to play YouTube videos without restrictions is by embedding videos with YouTube’s Player for Education within an edtech tool such as Google Slides. 
If teachers want to disable content restrictions on YouTube videos played directly on youtube.com, and your school provides Google Workspace for Education accounts for teachers, follow these steps to give teachers permission to “allow list” a video:

1. Make sure you’re logged into your Google Workspace for Education account with your administrator credentials and navigate to your Google Admin Console.
2. Go to Apps on the navigation menu on the left hand side of the screen.
3. Select “Additional Google Services”, scroll down to find YouTube listed alphabetically (it may be on the last page). 
4. Under “Content Settings”, navigate to “Special approvers”. 
5. Check the box that says, “Verified Google Classroom teachers can approve videos” and click “Save”. 
6. To review your Google Classroom teachers “Google Group”, click on “Google Classroom teachers” in the “Special approvers” section. 
7. Go back to “Settings for YouTube” and scroll down to “Permissions”, select the “expand” icon. 
8. Select “teachers” under “Search for Organizational Units”. 
9. Select “Can approve videos” under “Permissions at this level”.
10. Click “Save”. 
11. To review the videos that teachers have disabled restrictions on, navigate to Content Settings > Approved Videos > See approved videos.

YouTube’s Player for Education gives teachers the ability to embed selected content without any content personalization. As a result, teacher and student views aren’t connected back to their YouTube accounts and their watch history is not tracked over time.

For YouTube related questions, please complete this form. If you need help with Google Classroom or Workspace, please contact Google Workspace for Education support. For any other edtech tool support, please contact your provider directly.

No, YouTube (youtube.com), operates as a distinct platform with separate service terms. Unlike Google Workspace for Education core services (such as Google Classroom or Google Docs), YouTube is designated as an Additional Service for Workspace for Education accounts. This distinction helps school leaders and teachers clearly understand how data privacy governance and parental consent requirements apply when bringing YouTube resources into the classroom. Learn more about the Service categories available to Google Workspace for Education Users.