Embedded Files
As an Administrator, you can create classification labels to apply to files your users store in Google Drive and messages they write in Gmail. You can think of them as a metadata tag that can help structure and manage data. Classification labels can be simple tags or include detailed information like dates, people, or dropdown lists.
Google Drive and Gmail offer two types of labels: standard and badged.
Standard labels are typically used for general organization and tagging in Gmail and Drive. They can be used to categorize files by project name, year, or other broad categories. You'll find these labels in the Drive and Gmail sidebars.
Badged labels highlight important details about your files and folders. They appear as colored badges next to the file name, making it easy to spot things like confidentiality or sensitivity levels at a glance.
Classification labels can be applied to:
Classification labels can be applied to:
Any file in Drive owned by your organization.
Any Gmail message as it’s written by a user in your organization in Gmail.
Email messages written in non-Gmail email clients. However, these messages can be labeled only by DLP rules, not by the user.
Classification labels can’t be applied to:
Classification labels can’t be applied to:
Folders, shortcuts, shared drives, or files owned by another organization.
Email messages sent by people outside your organization.
Email messages that were already sent or received.
The HR Manager, Izumi, has sent you an email with a request from the sales team.
Exercise directions
Exercise directions
Part 1: Create labels
Step 1
If you’re not already signed in, sign in to your domain as the Administrator at admin.google.com.
Step 2
From the main menu, navigate to Security, then select Access and data control, and click Label manager.
Step 3
Click New label. You will be taken to a new page to fill out the label information.
Step 4
Enter Classified in the Label name text box.
Step 5
Check the box next to Drive and Docs and click Enable.
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Part 2: Add fields
Step 1
From the New label page, click Add fields.
Step 2
Under the Following fields are supported for Drive, Docs and Gmail list, click the + button in the Badge list row.
Step 3
In the New field menu that appears in the Preview pane, select a badge option of your choice.
Step 4
Click Add fields.
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Part 3: Set label permissions
Step 1
In the Permissions section of the Preview panel, click Edit.
Step 2
From the dropdown menu, select Restricted access.
Step 3
In the Add people or groups text box, search for the Sales group you created in a previous exercise.
Step 4
Click Save.
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Part 4: Preview and publish a label
New labels are created in a "draft" state so you can review how your label will appear to users before making it available.
Step 1
To preview the label, select the app that you want to preview the label for in the Showing preview for menu in the Preview panel.
Step 2
Review the label and any fields. Please note that field type can’t be changed after the label is published.
Step 3
Click Publish.
Step 4
Confirm that you want to publish the label by clicking Publish.
Users with permissions to view or use the label now have access, and you can use the label to classify and protect data. You’ll learn more in the next section.
Notes
Notes
When you edit a label, changes are saved as a draft. To make your edits available to users, you must publish the label again.
For Drive classification labels, file permissions still apply. For example, if a user has view-only access to a file, they can only view labels applied to that file, even if they’re allowed to apply and set those labels.
Any user with a Google account can be granted permission to view or apply labels. However, Drive classification labels can only be applied to items that are owned by users with a license that supports Drive labels or items in shared drives.
You can create up to 150 labels for your organization.
For Drive, files can have up to 5 user-applied labels. You can apply up to 20 labels total between user-applied and rule-applied labels.
Labels can be applied to any file in Drive, but not to folders, shortcuts, shared drives, or files owned by another organization.
For Gmail, messages can have up to 20 classification labels total applied by users and by rules. Users see a warning if they exceed that limit. If the labels are applied by rules, only the top 20 ranked labels apply.
Help Center resources
Help Center resources
You can explore more about creating Drive and Gmail labels in the Google Workspace Admin Help Center.
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