Manage Workspace guests  |  Advanced  |  Google Workspace Help Skip to main content Advanced Documentation Administrators Getting started Apps and integrations Set up and manage services Billing and subscriptions Data migration Data synchronization Device management Domain management Reports and monitoring Security and data protection User management Legal and compliance Support and troubleshooting Users Calendar Chat Cloud Search Gmail Groups Docs, Forms, Sheets, and Slides Drive Keep Meet Meet Hardware Sites Vids Developers Apps Script Marketplace Workspace APIs Training & business user guides Workspace Learning Center Google Skills Community Communities Workspace Admin Community Workspace Developers Community Support / English Deutsch Español – América Latina Français Indonesia Italiano Nederlands Polski Português – Brasil Svenska Tiếng Việt Türkçe Русский עברית العربيّة فارسی हिंदी বাংলা ภาษาไทย 中文 – 简体 中文 – 繁體 日本語 한국어 Sign in Administrators User management Advanced Admin console Contact us Overview Guides Advanced Overview Guides Documentation More Community More Support Users and devices About user and device policies How the organizational structure works Organizational policies FAQ Manage organizational units Add an organizational unit Move users to an organizational unit Move a ChromeOS device to an organizational unit Move, rename, or delete an organizational unit Control user access Manage user access to services Turn a service on or off Turn an additional service on or off Turn Applied Digital Skills on or off Turn AppSheet on or off Turn Apps Script on or off Turn Calendar on or off Turn Campaign Manager on or off Turn Chrome Web Store on or off Turn Classroom on or off Turn Cloud Search on or off Turn Early Access apps on or off Turn Google Flow on or off Turn Forms on or off Turn Google Ad Manager on or off Turn Google Alerts on or off Turn Google Books on or off Turn Google Drive and Docs on or off Turn Google Home on or off Turn Google Voice on or off Turn Google Workspace LTI™ on or off Turn Groups for Business on or off Turn Keep on or off Turn Data Studio on or off Turn Merchant Center on or off Turn Gemini Notebook on or off Turn Play Books Partner Center on or off Turn Programmable Search Engine on or off Turn Read Along on or off Turn Scholar Profiles on or off Turn Search Ads 360 on or off Turn Sites on or off Turn Socratic on or off Turn Studio on or off Turn Tasks on or off Turn Vids on or off Turn Workspace Studio on or off View which apps are turned on Choose when users get new features Turn new services on or off by default Add a paid subscription Change service settings Customize service access Customize service settings Save & manage search activity Let users' Assistants access Google Workspace Other user management tasks Download a list of users Manage Workspace guests Overview Update guest directory settings Update Workspace Guest organizational unit settings Troubleshoot guest accounts Automated user provisioning About automated user provisioning Monitor automated user provisioning View auto-provisioning errors Provisioning guides for apps 15Five Adobe Amazon Web Services Asana Atlassian Cloud Bonusly Boomi Box Canva Comeet Deskpro Dialpad Dialpad Sandbox Docusign Dropbox Business Emburse Eptura Visitor (formerly Proxyclick) Evernote Business Federated Directory Figma Foodee Freshdesk Front Fuze GoToMeeting Hootsuite HubSpot Huddle Keeper Klipfolio Kudos Lucidchart LumApps Miro Monday Notion Office 365 OfficeSpace Omnissa PayPal Honey RECOG RingCentral Office Rollbar Salesforce Salesforce Sandbox SAP Cloud Platform Identity Authentication ScreenSteps Slack Smartsheet SpaceIQ Spoke SugarCRM ThousandEyes Trello Workplace from Facebook Zendesk Zscaler Administrators Getting started Apps and integrations Set up and manage services Billing and subscriptions Data migration Data synchronization Device management Domain management Reports and monitoring Security and data protection User management Legal and compliance Support and troubleshooting Users Calendar Chat Cloud Search Gmail Groups Docs, Forms, Sheets, and Slides Drive Keep Meet Meet Hardware Sites Vids Developers Apps Script Marketplace Workspace APIs Training & business user guides Workspace Learning Center Google Skills Communities Workspace Admin Community Workspace Developers Community Google Workspace Help Administrators User management Advanced Guides Send feedback Manage Workspace guests Stay organized with collections Save and categorize content based on your preferences. Supported editions for this feature: Workspace guests in Google Chat are supported in all Business and Enterprise SKUs. Workspace guests in Gmail Client-side encryption are supported in Enterprise Plus SKUs with the Assured Controls add-on. Compare your edition If your users will be collaborating only with external users that use Client-side Encryption (CSE), see Provide external access to client-side encrypted content. What are guests? Workspace guest accounts let people who don't have accounts within your organization—such as a contractor who uses a different email system—securely collaborate with your users in Google Workspace apps. How guest accounts work When someone in your organization sends an encrypted email or invites an external user to a chat, Google Workspace creates a guest account for them. The guest receives an invitation to set up their account. After the guest acknowledges the Google Workspace Terms of Service and that any data they access belongs to your organization, they can start working with your users. Guests are automatically added to the Workspace Guests organizational unit of your Admin console, where you can manage their accounts. You can update their information, control which services they have access to, set password requirements, and use other security features. For added security, guest accounts cannot be moved into other organizational units. What can guests do? Workspace guests can view and respond to encrypted emails, join chats, access shared documents and drives, and participate in meetings as a guest in your organization. Email capabilities for guests Workspace user ability Supported for guests? Receive and reply to encrypted emails on external accounts Only with the Assured Controls Add-on Chat capabilities for guests Workspace user ability Supported for guests? Create Space Browse Spaces Guests can only browse spaces they're added to by members of your organization Message Search Guests can search chats and Spaces they are in Request to Join Spaces Chat with external users in a DM Chat with internal users in a DM When sent a message request Chat with other guests in a DM Only with guests created by the same host domain Join a space marked as external created by an external organization When added by a user from your organization Join internal spaces Add others to a space Modify space details Use people suggestions Suggestions only include users who have messaged the guest Use @mention people suggestions in a Space Suggestions only include users who have messaged the guest Upload files to a space marked as external With administrator permission Upload files to a DM With administrator permission Access files uploaded to space marked as external Access files uploaded to DM View public spaces using a URL Be invited to multiple spaces Find, install, and run Chat apps Add Webhooks to spaces Initiate Meet requests Block users Report users Report messages in spaces React with emoji in spaces React with emoji in DMs with organization users React with custom emoji Create, assign, or mark a space task as completed Use @All in a space With Space Manager permission Pin a message, Google Docs file, or link to Chat Board Drive capabilities for guests Workspace user ability Supported for guests? Read the name and description of a file or folder Read the content of a file Read the list of items in a folder Download a file Copy a file Add comments to a file Modify the name and description of a file or folder Modify the content of the file Access historical revisions Remove items from the My Drive folder Share items from the My Drive folder Share a shared drive item Share a Shared Drive folder Add files to shared drives Modify the name or description of a shared drive Add shared drive members Access detailed file permissions Reorganize items within a shared drive Move items outside of a shared drive Move items into the trash Recover items from the trash Empty the trash Delete a file or folder Delete items in shared drives Delete an empty shared drive Meet capabilities for guests Workspace user ability Supported for guests? Join a Meet call from a Chat invite sent by an internal user Note: Guests don't have access to Gmail, Google Calendar or Gemini in Workspace. They can't be included in Dynamic Groups. Guest account limits You get 5 free guest accounts for every paid Business and Enterprise license in your organization. For example, if your organization has 10 paid user licenses, you can have 50 guest accounts. Turn off guest account invitations By default, your users can invite guests to your organization using Google Chat or Gmail Client-side Encryption (CSE). If you don't want your users to be able to invite guests, you can turn off guest account invitations in either Google Chat, Gmail CSE, or both. Turn off guest account invitations in Chat Sign in with an administrator account to the Google Admin console. Go to Menu Security Access and data control External sharing Guest invitations. Clear Allow users to send guest invitations to people outside your organization. Click Save. Turn off guest account invitations in Gmail Sign in with an administrator account to the Google Admin console. Go to Menu Data Compliance Client-side encryption Gmail Encryption with guest accounts. Clear Allow users to send client-side encrypted messages to recipients who aren't using S/MIME. Click Save. How guest accounts work with visitor sharing Guest accounts are different from visitor sharing. With visitor sharing, your users can invite people without a Google Account to collaborate on Google Drive files and folders using an identity verification PIN. Guest accounts allow external users to collaborate on a wider range of Workspace services by creating an account in your Workspace Guests org unit. If you have guest accounts turned on: External users can start with a guest account or visitor access, depending on how your users initially collaborate with them. New external users invited through Google Chat get a guest account. Access to shared Google Drive files and folders defaults to their guest account. New external users who receive a shared file or folder from Google Drive get visitor access to that item. Existing external users with visitor access who are invited to collaborate through Google Chat get a guest account. Access to any new shared Drive files or folders defaults to their guest account, but they keep visitor access to any previously shared files or folders. If you have guest accounts turned off: Your users can use visitor sharing to collaborate on Drive files and folders. Related topics Manage guests in Chat Chatting with external users and guest accounts Control external Chat and spaces chat options Manage guests in Drive Create and manage trust rules for Drive sharing Allow external sharing with only trusted domains Allow sharing to non-Google users with visitor sharing Send feedback Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License. For details, see the Google Developers Site Policies. Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Last updated 2026-07-17 UTC. Need to tell us more? [[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Missing the information I need","missingTheInformationINeed","thumb-down"],["Too complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2026-07-17 UTC."],[],[]] Try Google Workspace Boost your productivity with AI at no cost Admin Community Get answers from industry peers and experts Customer Care Learn about support options and services Documentation & training Help Centers Developer guides Learning Center Google Skills Tools Admin console Apps Script Dashboard Google Cloud console Support Admin Community Developers Community Customer Care Terms Privacy Manage cookies English Deutsch Español – América Latina Français Indonesia Italiano Nederlands Polski Português – Brasil Svenska Tiếng Việt Türkçe Русский עברית العربيّة فارسی हिंदी বাংলা ภาษาไทย 中文 – 简体 中文 – 繁體 日本語 한국어