Turn Google Drive and Docs on or off for users

This article is for administrators who manage Drive and Docs editors for an organization. For help managing your own files, go to the Learning Center.

As an administrator, you can turn Google Drive on or off for people in your organization. This setting also controls access to Google Docs editors, such as Google Docs, Sites, and Apps Script. In most cases, the Drive and Docs service is on for your organization by default. You can turn on the Drive and Docs service for everyone in your organization, specific organizational units, or specific groups.

Users signed in with their Google Workspace account with Drive and Docs turned on can use all the services offered by Drive and Docs. Users signed in with their Google Workspace account where Drive and Docs has been turned off can still use the service, but only in limited capacity similar to a user signed out of their account. For example, they can still access publicly shared documents on the web anonymously even when the Drive and Docs toggle is turned off.

When Drive and Docs is turned off

Users can't do the following:

Access or create files in Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Sites, Vids, or Apps Script. Existing Apps Script scripts still execute. When Drive and Docs is turned off for a file owner, other users who have Drive and Docs turned on and who had the file shared with them can still access it.
Submit Google Forms that require them to share documents outside your organization.
Upload files to spaces in the integrated Gmail experience. Learn more about integrated Gmail.
Use custom email layouts in Gmail.

Admins are limited in how they can manage file sharing settings:

You can’t change file-sharing permissions in your Admin console.
If you have trust rules turned on and set up, the rules still apply to users' files. For details about trust rules, go to Create and manage trust rules for Drive sharing.

If you want to let users use Drive but not create files with Docs, Sheets, and other Docs editors, set the Drive and Docs service to on and turn off Docs creation.

Control who uses Drive and Docs editors in your organization

Before you begin: To turn a service on or off for certain users, put their accounts in an organizational unit (to control access by department) or add them to an access group (to allow access for users across or within departments).

Sign in with an administrator account to the Google Admin console.
If you aren’t using an administrator account, you can’t access the Admin console.
Go to Menu Apps > Google Workspace > Drive and Docs.
Requires having the Service Settings administrator privilege.
Click Service status.
To turn a service on or off for everyone in your organization, click On for everyone or Off for everyone, and then click Save.
(Optional) To turn a service on or off for an organizational unit:
1. At the left, select the organizational unit.
2. To change the Service status, select On or Off.
3. Choose one:
  - If the Service status is set to Inherited and you want to keep the updated setting, even if the parent setting changes, click Override.
  - If the Service status is set to Overridden, either click Inherit to revert to the same setting as its parent, or click Save to keep the new setting, even if the parent setting changes.
    Learn more about organizational structure.
(Optional) To turn on a service for a set of users across or within organizational units, select an access group. For details, go to Use groups to customize service access.