Google Workspace Session Timeout

01. Understanding Session

02. Default Session
Length in Google Workspace

03. Configure Session Timeout

04. Access Security Settings

05. Google session control

06. Making Session Timeout Policy?

7. FAQ

Most frequent questions and answers about Google Workspace Session Timeout Control

No, when you change the session length in Google admin console (as shown above), then settings only apply to new sessions.

All users with an active sessions will “Not” be impacted by it, however once they “logout” OR “their 14 days default session expires”, then the new session length will be enforced.

Yes, workaround is to reset required user’s sign in cookies.

You can do that by following-;

  1. Search for the user in admin console
  2. Go to user’s account page
  3. Scroll down to see “Reset Sign In” cookies (as shown in the screenshot below)

Please note -: This will log the user out from all active sessions include the mobile app such as Gmail App on Android or iOS.

So be careful, I recall once I accidentally did it to our client’s CEO’s account and he had to login again to all his 6 devices, that was a tough day for me:).

Yes & No

Let me explain

As per Google’s documentation “Chrome Broswer” on Android and iOS works a bit different and these settings will NOT be applied on it, however other browsers such as  Mozilla Firefox are covered by this setting.

No, it does not apply on Google Workspace mobile apps (e.g Gmail or Drive app on Android and iOS).

So, let say, if you configure session to be 8 hours, users on mobile devices with native Google Workspace apps will “NOT” need to enter their password every 8 hours which is good else it’ll be a nightmare:).

 

Yes.

Though at the time of initial launch of session control, it was only supported where Google was acting as IDP,  but just after couple of weeks, Google enhanced its session control and now it applies on SAML based authentication too where Google isn’t acting as authentication provider.

So if you are using a third party IDP (e.g Okta, Ping Identity or ADFS), this setting will now apply to those Google Workspace sessions too.

No.

Google Workspace Admin session timeout is “One Hour”, and as its a persistent one, which means closing the browser won’t impact the session but one hour time would.

No.

So far following static options are available to control sessions-:

1 Hour

4 Hours

8 Hours

12 Hours

24 Hours

7 Days

14 Days

30 Days

Session Never Expires

 

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