Administrator privilege definitions

Granting privileges to an admin in the Admin console gives them corresponding rights in the API. For example, granting the privilege to create users in the Admin console also lets admins create users using the API. Likewise, updating Admin API rights updates corresponding privileges in the Admin console.

To grant privileges in the Admin console without allowing admins to perform actions in an API, turn off API access for your account. For details, go to Manage access to Google services: Restricted or Unrestricted.

The Admin API privilege allows the Google Workspace Admin API to perform actions on:

• Organizational Units—Admins can perform all of the operations granted by the Organizational Units Admin console privilege.

  With the API privilege, you perform these operations using the Directory API.

• Users—Admins can perform all of the operations granted by the Users Admin console privilege.

  With the API privilege, you perform these operations using the Directory API.

• Groups—Admins can perform all of the operations granted by the Groups Admin console privilege.

  With the API privilege, you perform these operations using the:

  • Directory API
  • Groups Settings API
• User Security Management—Admins can perform all of the operations granted by the User Security Management Admin console privilege.

  With the API privilege, you perform these operations using the:

  • Directory API
  • Admin Settings API
• Data Transfer—Super admins or services admins can transfer ownership of users' Drive files using the Admin console. Admins also need the Drive Services privilege to access the Transfer ownership setting in the console. None of these actions can be limited to specific organizational units.
  Note: Only super admins can transfer file ownership when deleting a user.
• Schema Management—Super admins or services admins can create schemas to define custom fields for their domain, such as user projects, locations, or hire dates.
• License Management—Super admins and admins with the License Management role can assign and manage Google Workspace licenses for the organization, an organizational unit, a group of users, or an individual user.
• Billing Management—Admins can perform billing tasks such as setting up a billing account or changing a payment method. This privilege works only in the Admin console.
• Domain Management—Admins can add or remove domains and set up domain aliases.
• Domain Allowlist Management—Admins can create and manage the allowlist of trusted domains that can share files with your organization.
• Domain Allowlist Read—Admins can view the allowlist of trusted domains that can share files with your organization.
• Add security label to a group—Admins can define groups that control access to sensitive information and resources. For details see Updating a Google Group to a security group.

If you create a custom role, you can check the box next to the privilege to allow using the API to perform all actions on that object. Or, click individual actions (such as Create or Read) to permit only selected actions.

Admins with the Domains Settings privilege can:

• Change the organization name, language, logo, and time zone.
• Delete your Google Workspace or Cloud Identity Account.
• View billing for your Google Workspace or Cloud Identity Account.
• Add and remove domains and domain aliases.
• Map a custom URL to a site in Google Sites.
• Manage your feature release process.
• Choose the types of email you get from Google. For details, see Choose your Google Workspace notifications preferences.

These actions can’t be limited to specific organizational units.

Admins with the Groups privilege have full control over groups created in your Admin console. Also grants the corresponding Admin API privileges (above).

Administrators with this privilege can:

• View user profiles and your organizational structure.
• Create, manage, and delete groups in the Admin console.
• Manage group access settings.
• Turn on services for access groups (also requires privileges for Organizational Units and Services). For details, see Customize service settings with configuration groups.

These actions can't be limited to specific organizational units.

Tip: To let admins view the groups a user belongs to but not edit them, give them the GroupsRead API privilege.

Admins with this privilege can manage your account's organizational structure from the Users page in their Admin console. Also grants the corresponding Admin API privileges (above).

Organizational Units privileges:

• Read
• Create
• Update
• Delete

The Create, Update, or Delete privileges automatically grants the Read privilege.

You can allow admins to perform actions on all users in your account or only on users in specific organizational units. For details, go to Assign specific admin roles.

Admins have access to usage reports and audit logs. For details, go to Reporting overview.

Admins with the Reports privilege can:

• View graphs showing service use.
• Track user activities such as document edits.
• Track changes made by other admins in the Admin console.

These actions can’t be limited to specific organizational units.

User Security Management

Note: Only super admins can see another admin's security settings.

Admins can manage security settings for individual users. They can only manage users who don't have admin privileges. Also grants the corresponding Admin API privileges (above).

On a person's Users page, admins with the User Security Management privilege can:

• Disable 2-Step Verification. Only super administrators can enforce 2-Step Verification for the entire organization.
• Disable the sign-in challenge for 10 minutes.
• Review and revoke security keys.
• Review and revoke app passwords.
• Reset sign-in cookies (not for reseller admins).
• Review and revoke any 3-legged OAuth tokens the user granted to third-party apps.

All of these actions can be limited to specific organizational units, except enforcing or disabling 2-Step Verification.

Security Settings

• Allow less secure apps to access accounts
• Monitor user passwords
• Set up single sign-on (SSO) and authentication

Allowing less secure apps to access accounts is the only action that can be limited to specific organizational units.

Admins with the Support privilege can use phone, chat, and email options to contact Google Workspace support. They can also file cases in the Google Customer Care Portal.

The ability to contact Google Workspace support can't be limited to specific organizational units.

Admins with the Users privilege can perform actions on users. Only super admins can change another admin's settings. Also grants the corresponding Admin API privileges (above).

• Create
• Read
• Update — Grants the ability to change user accounts, including archiving, unarchiving, and granting the ability to restore data. It also includes the following permissions that can be individually delegated.
  • Move users
    Note: Only super admins can use the Transfer tool to transfer unmanaged user accounts to Google Workspace managed user accounts.
  • Suspend users
  • Rename users
  • Reset password
  • Force password change
  • Add/remove aliases
• Delete

The Create privilege automatically grants Read and Update privileges. Update or Delete privileges automatically grant Read privilege.

You can let admins perform actions on all users in your account or only users in specific organizational units. For details, go to Make a user an admin.

Tip: To let admins view a user's groups but not edit them, give them the API privilege by clicking GroupsRead API privilege.

The Service Settings privilege does not automatically grant privileges to some services and settings, for example, data regions, Data Security, Google Vault, and Security Center.

Admins with the Service Settings privilege can turn services on or off and change service settings. Applies to certain products you've added to your account (Google Workspace services, such as Calendar, and Drive), Marketplace apps, and free Google services, such as YouTube and Blogger.

For description of privileges and recommendations for creating roles, go to Grant access to the alert center.

The App Maker privilege has been deprecated. For details, see App Maker shutting down.

Admins with this privilege can manage Google AppSheet settings, including governance policies and team management. For more information, go to Assign AppSheet admin privileges to Workspace admins.

This privilege is not automatically selected with the Service Settings privilege.

Admins can manage your organization’s Chrome devices and policies, including:

• User settings
• Device settings
• Chrome and Managed Google Play apps and extensions on Chrome devices

For more information, go to Delegate administrator roles in Chrome.

Admins with the Classroom privilege can turn this service on or off for users. They can also:

• Set teacher permissions and guardian access.
• Choose who can join classes and which ones they can join.
• Control how users access their Classroom data.
• Export grades and assignments from Classroom to their school’s information system.

Manage Classes—Super admins can designate users with temporary class access. They can limit class access to specific organizational units.

View analytics data for users and their classes—Super admins can designate users with access to organization-level Classroom analytics. They can limit access to specific organizational units.

Admins with the Cloud Search privilege can:

• Grant user access to Google Cloud Search.
• Turn the service on or off.
• View reports on how the organization uses Cloud Search, including the number of search queries from different types of devices and the number of active users.
• Manage settings for third-party repositories, such as settings for data sources, identity sources, and search applications. Admins also have read or write access for indexing.

Learn about creating a Cloud Search administrator role for a developer.

Contact delegates are users that have permission to access and manage contacts for another user. Admins with the Contacts privilege can view, create, or delete delegates for a given user using the Contact Delegation API:

• Delegates Read - Admins can use the API to list delegates for a specific user. Equivalent to the OAuth scope https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.contact.delegation.readonly.
• Delegates Write - Admins can use the API to create or delete delegates for a specific user. Equivalent to the OAuth scope https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.contact.delegation.

Only the View DLP rule privilege is automatically selected with the Service Settings privilege.

DLP privileges:

• View DLP rule—Admins can view but not modify or create DLP rules.
• Manage DLP rule—Admins can view, modify, and create DLP rules.

You must enable both of these privileges to have complete access for creating and editing rules. We recommend you create a custom role that has both privileges.

This privilege is not automatically selected with the Service Settings privilege.

Data regions privileges:

• Data Regions Settings—Admins can choose to store data covered by a data region policy in a specific geographic location by using a data region policy. For details, go to Data regions: Choose a geographic location for your data.
• Data Regions Reporting—Admins can see the progress as data moves from one region to another. For details, go to View data regions move progress.

Admins can manage settings and control Directory profile changes to let users make changes to their profile, including their name, photo, gender, and birthday

Directory Sync privileges:

• Manage Directory Sync Settings—Add, update, and manage Directory Sync settings.
• Read Directory Sync Settings—View, but not alter, Directory Sync settings.

For more information, go to Directory Sync.

Google Drive and Docs management rights:

• Settings—Admins can manage all settings for your organization's Drive and Docs services. You need this privilege and the Data Transfer privilege to transfer ownership of Drive files. For details, go to Transfer Drive files to a new owner.
• Docs Templates—Admins can remove and categorize templates in the Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms template galleries and in the Drive and Docs section of the Admin console. When template submission is set to Moderated in the Admin Console, admins can accept or reject template submissions. When submission is set to Restricted, admins can add templates to the gallery. For details, go to Create custom Drive templates.
• Move any file or folder into shared drives—Admins can move files and folders into shared drives in your organization. However, admins can't move files and folders from one shared drive to another shared drive. Learn more about shared drives access levels
• Manage labels—Admins can create custom label types for Drive files and folders. They can also see if a label is used by Google Vault retention rule, a data classification rule, or a data loss prevention (DLP) rule. However, they can’t see the retention or DLP rule unless they also have those privileges. For details, go to Manage Drive labels.
• View details of new Google Sites—Admins can identify the owner of a site, see the date the site was last published, and request edit access to the site.
• Manage Classic Google Sites—Admins can use the Classic Sites Manager to view, manage, and migrate all of your organization's Classic Google Sites. Learn more

Only the Settings privilege is automatically selected with the Service Settings privilege.

Gmail management rights:

• Settings—Manage all Gmail settings for your organization.
• Email Log Search—Search the log, troubleshoot delivery, and investigate security issues associated with emails.
• Access Admin Quarantine—Access and manage emails in all quarantines, including the default quarantine.
• Access restricted quarantines—Access and manage emails only in quarantines associated with groups the admin belongs to.

• Settings—Read and modify settings for Google Chat, such as saving conversations and allowing conversations with people outside of your organization. 
• Manage Chat and Spaces conversation—Manage spaces and space members.
• Moderate Chat content report—Review and take actions Chat reports.

This privilege is not automatically selected with the Service Settings privilege.

Admins with this privilege can set up and manage Google Cloud Print services for their organization, including printing from:

• Chrome devices and Chrome Browser on Windows, Mac, and Linux computers
• The mobile version of Google Workspace services, such as Gmail
• Third-party native mobile apps

For details, go to Print from Chrome.

Admins with this privilege can:

• Manage settings
• Access the quality dashboard for Hangouts. For details, go to Track meeting quality and statistics.

Admins with this privilege can:

• Manage settings
• Access the quality dashboard for Google Meet. For details, see Track meeting quality and statistics.

This privilege is not available unless your account has at least one Google Meet hardware license or enrolled device.

Admins can create user roles and assign privileges to allow viewing and managing Google Meet hardware devices with varying levels of access to data and functionality. Granting access to a parent privilege will also grant access to any nested child privileges underneath it in the tree.

Privilege hierarchy

• Manage Google Meet hardware and calendars
  • Manage Google Meet hardware
    • Manage devices
      • View devices
    • Manage organizational unit settings
      • View organizational unit settings
    • Perform actions 
      • Perform device commands 
      • Manage device meetings 
    • Deprovision Google Meet hardware 
  • Manage calendar assignment
• Enroll Google Meet hardware

Detailed descriptions

• Manage Google Meet hardware and calendars - Admins have full access to all available Meet hardware device data and functionality, except for Enroll Google Meet hardware. Admins can access and view all user and resource calendars.
• Manage Google Meet hardware - Admins have access to all available Meet hardware device data and functionality, except for Enroll Google Meet hardware and Manage calendar assignment. 
• Manage devices - Admins can modify all individual device settings other than calendar assignment; also grants View devices privilege.
• View devices - Admins get read-only access to device data, including issue history and fleet data export functionality; required to be able to access pages hosting functionality in many other privileges (including Manage calendar assignment, Perform actions and its child privileges, and Deprovision Google Meet hardware).
• Manage organizational unit settings - Admins can edit Google Meet hardware settings controlled at the organizational unit-level and move devices between organizational units.
• View organizational unit settings - Admins can view Google Meet hardware settings controlled at the organizational unit-level.
• Perform actions - Admins can take any of the actions in the two child privileges: Manage device meetings and Perform device commands.
• Manage device meetings - Admins can connect to a meeting remotely and mute or hang up an active call.
• Perform device commands - Admins can reboot a device or trigger a diagnostics test.
• Deprovision Google Meet hardware - Admins can unenroll a device, causing its data to be deleted and its license to be reclaimed.
• Manage calendar assignment - Admins can assign a personal or room calendar to a device.
• Enroll Google Meet hardware - Works in conjunction with the Require enrollment privilege policy. When the policy is turned on, only users with this privilege can enroll new Meet hardware devices in your organization. For details, see Enroll your device.

Note: Admins can’t limit these privileges to devices in specific organizational units at this time.

This privilege is not automatically selected with the Service Settings privilege.

Admins can view all matters and manage matters, holds, searches, exports, retention policies, and audits. For details, go to Understand and grant Vault privileges.

Admins with this privilege can control which third-party or internal apps users can install from the Marketplace, with the following options:

• Allow users to install and run any app from the Marketplace
• Allow users to install and run only selected apps from the Marketplace
• Don’t allow users to install and run apps from the Marketplace

  For details on user access to Marketplace apps, see Manage Marketplace apps on your allowlist.

Admins with this privilege can read and modify settings for Groups for Business, including:

• Who can create groups.
• Whether people outside your organization can view, search for, and post to your groups.
• Default values for who can view conversations in groups.

Admins with this privilege can turn the Jamboard service on or off for your organization. If you have actual licensed Jamboards, you'll have access to additional settings, including:

• Whether jam owners can be assigned without email confirmation.
• Screensaver message and timeout value for all Jamboards.

Note: To view and manage individual Jamboards, admins need the Jamboard Management privilege.

Admins with this privilege can manage Looker Studio settings, including viewing, sharing, and customizing dashboards and reports. Learn more about Looker Studio.

Admins with this privilege have full control over devices listed in your Admin console, and can:

• Manage device settings and policies.
• Perform all management operations, such as approve, block, delete, and wipe devices.
• Publish and manage mobile apps.

This privilege is not automatically selected with the Service Settings privilege.

Admins with this privilege can set up and manage password vaulted apps.

Related topics

• Get started with password vaulted apps
• Assign admin privileges for the password vaulted apps service

Admins with the Pinpoint privilege can turn this service on or off for users. They can also set whether users can ​​copy files from Google Drive to Pinpoint.

This privilege is not automatically selected with the Service Settings privilege.

Admins with this privilege can manage the Secure LDAP service and add or delete LDAP clients. Learn more

Important: The Secure LDAP service is available only for administrators with Super Admin privileges—therefore, Super Admins are unable to assign Secure LDAP privileges to delegated admins. When setting up admin roles for your users, please ignore this setting.

This privilege is not automatically selected with the Service Settings privilege.

Admins with this privilege have access to advanced security information and analytics and added visibility and control into security issues affecting their organization.

Super admins have automatic access to all security center features, including the security dashboard, the security health page, and the investigation tool. You can give admins access to a specific security center feature (for example, just the security dashboard) by granting them the administrative privileges needed to access the feature.

Related topics

• Admin privileges for the security center
• Use the security dashboard
• Get started with the security health page
• About the security investigation tool

This privilege is not automatically selected with the Service Settings privilege.

Admins with this privilege can manage all common device configurations. They can set up Virtual Private Network (VPN), Wi-Fi, and Ethernet networks for mobile, Chrome, and Chromebox for meetings devices.

Admins can read and modify settings for Sites, such as whether users can create and edit sites, and whether sites can be shared outside your organization.

Admins with this privilege can open the Storage page in the Admin console and set storage limits. However, to view storage data requires additional privileges. For a complete list, see the description of the Storage Admin role.

Trust rules rights for managing Drive sharing:

• View Trust Rules—Admins can read the list of trust rules in the Rules list. To view rule settings details, admins also need the Organizational UnitsRead privilege.
• Manage Trust Rules—This privilege alone doesn't provide access to any settings in the Admin console. To manage trust rules, admins need the following privileges:
  • To turn trust rules on or off, admins need the Manage Trust Rules and Drive & DocsSettings privileges.
  • To create, edit, or delete trust rules, admins need the View Trust Rules, Manage Trust Rules, Drive & DocsSettings, GroupsRead, and Organizational UnitsRead privileges.
  • To delete trust rules, admins need the View Trust Rules, Manage Trust Rules, and Drive & DocsSettings privileges.

This privilege is not automatically selected with the Service Settings privilege.

Admins can access data on the Work Insights dashboard. Data is available only for teams that have Work Insights turned on.

You can let users view data for all available teams or just specific teams, including organizational units, authorized groups, or teams in a manager's reporting line.

Related topics

• Control which data is available in Work Insights
• Grant access to Work Insights

Admins with this privilege can:

• Restrict the YouTube videos that are viewable within your organization.
• Set different YouTube access levels (strict, moderate, unrestricted) for different organizational units.

For details, see Manage your organization's YouTube settings.