If your Google Workspace edition already includes a Google Vault license, your admins can use that license. If your edition doesn't include a Vault license, you can either upgrade to an edition that includes a Vault license, or you can purchase a Vault add-on license. Learn more about Vault licenses .
To ensure continued access to Google Vault, please update the licenses for all your active Vault admins before November 1, 2025.
As a Google Workspace administrator, you must have a Workspace subscription license that includes Google Vaultto use Vault. You can control who in your organization can access the Vault service by turning Vault on or off for those people in your Google Admin console. For example, turn on Vault for accounts who have privileges to perform Vault functions and turn the service off for everyone else.
Note:
- Turning Vault on or off has no effect on which accounts are archived by Vault. All user accounts with Vault licenses can be archived.
- This setting has no effect on which accounts can change retention, search for data, or perform other Vault functions. Users must have appropriate Vault privileges to work with Vault.
- If you turn Vault on for everyone in your organization, the Vault icon appears in everyone’s list of apps. Users who don't have any Vault privileges may be confused by the presence of an app that seems to be nonfunctional. If your domain has organizational units, we recommend you restrict access to organizational units that have Vault privileges.
How to change who can sign in to Vault
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 > Google Vault .
Requires having the Service Settings administrator privilege .
- Click Service status.
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To turn a service on or off for everyone in your organization, click On for everyoneor Off for everyone, and then click Save.
- (Optional) To turn a service on or off for an organizational unit:
- At the left, select the organizational unit.
- To change the Service status, select Onor Off.
- 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 Inheritto revert to the same setting as its parent, or click Saveto 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 .
