topic Re: Fun with YouTube settings in Peer-Peer Topics

Fun with YouTube settings

kcalderw — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 19:00:40 GMT

Has anyone successfully come up with a method of only allowing videos that teachers put in Classroom? We sort of have it working now but it's a combination of settings in the admin panel and our web filter. Also, the option for them to only see videos that are approved has never worked properly. Still there are some videos that just won't work and come up as restricted to the students. Does anyone have a working method they use?

Re: Fun with YouTube settings

steve — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 20:17:18 GMT

Well yes, we try to do this too. We have the YouTube Service shut down for students in the admin console, and we block bare youtube.com in our student webfilter. Teachers can still post videos in Classroom and I haven't heard any complaints about that recently? And students seem to find workarounds on a semi-regular basis!

Re: Fun with YouTube settings

kcalderw — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 11:48:31 GMT

Would you be able to test this video? I am having issues getting it to load for a student. It keeps coming up as restricted.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=IZlyYOZYeu0

Re: Fun with YouTube settings

MarkJLoundy — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 11:59:31 GMT

It’s OK here. Your student will most likely be able to access it outside of your school Wi-Fi network. Need to talk to your school districts network people about this.

Re: Fun with YouTube settings

kcalderw — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 12:02:50 GMT

That would be me.. I'm not blocking it via the firewall. If I move the account over to our Staff OU, the video works fine. It's definitely some sort of Google setting just not sure which. I even played around with the restriction settings and nothing seemed to work.

Re: Fun with YouTube settings

steve — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 16:20:23 GMT

Yes, the video is viewable to a student in our domain when embedded in Classroom (and the student doesn't have access to YouTube itself)

Re: Fun with YouTube settings

SteveHarmon — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 18:00:12 GMT

This video is not approved for my students:

Our teachers can approve it for the students. This feature is only available if you turn on the YouTube service. My understanding is if the service is turned off, then students can watch any video on YouTube without restriction. If you wanted to turn off the service, you would also need to block YouTube.com and run all the videos through Google Classroom.

Since it is not approved and it is not classified as an educational video, when I try to access it from a student account it shows up as not available:

If you set it up through Google Classroom, it does not matter if it is approved in YouTube as Classroom bypasses YouTube.

Re: Fun with YouTube settings

IPASupport — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 18:04:57 GMT

YouTube is currently disabled for all student accounts within their OUs. However, teachers can still share videos through Google Classroom and also embed them into Slides. So far, we have not encountered any issues with students being unable to view the shared videos. If a video appears as restricted, try checking it directly on YouTube. Look below the video player for a button on the right that says "Approve." Even if the approval option is turned off in our workspace, we still have the ability to click on "approve" for videos that are considered mature. Not sure why, since having this setting turned off should skip this step.

If that button is not present, you might see a message "This video is watchable by anyone at (your school name)" instead. If that's the case, you could try playing around with the YouTube access levels in your Google admin. If your YouTube settings are set to "Strict," some videos are unavailable for viewing. Try to adjust this setting to achieve a balance that works for you. Currently, our Elementary and Middle School grade OUs have the strict setting in place, while Secondary students (grades 9-12) have the moderate setting selected. Hope you're able to find a solution!

Re: Fun with YouTube settings

kcalderw — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 13:42:31 GMT

I get a different error, I have gone on and approved the video manually too but I still get this error.

Re: Fun with YouTube settings

Michael_Roop — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 13:56:22 GMT

In the past I had a similar issue and it turned out that the video was monetized with Advertisements turned on set to the adult level. Not sure if that helps, or if there is a tool to check those out nowadays. It seems like there would be by now.