Block Image Searching in Google Docs Editors

This article is written for G Suite for Education Administrators.

Students have been literally searching obscene pictures in Google Docs or Slides all the time, touching many school administrators' and teachers' nerves. According to an old report by Mary Meeker in 2014, 1.8 billion images are uploaded every day. It's unlikely kids never find shocking images slipped from Google's Image search engine.

Image searching is a ubiquitous feature in G Suite for education apps (Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Drawings, Sites and Jamboard). As an admin, to abide with the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) law, admins have to find a way to remove these content.

This article shows how Safe Doc removes the image searching feature completely from the G Suite docs editors, preventing your from exposed by accidental inappropriate images.

If you have yet to install the Safe Doc extension for your school, please get a 30 days trial and deploy it to your students' devices.

How Safe Doc blocks image searching in Google docs editors?

Safe Doc removes dozens of entries that could trigger the image searching feature. For example, Google Docs has an Insert > Image > Search the web menu entry that triggers a side window for searching images. Or on the toolbar, you can easily find an image button that works in the same way.

Once Safe Doc is installed and active, all entries will be removed. Student won't know the existence of image searching.

Image searching is available in Sheets too. Insert images in a cell, over a cell or insert image in a drawing, you name it.

Image searching in Slides.

Image searching in Forms. Forms may not be a useful tool for students, but its availability allows them to exploit the feature.

Image searching in Drawing.

Safe Doc can also hides the image search located in the Explore feature. In fact, the Explore feature is reported as a risky feature by many admins. You may find how to disable the Explore feature.

How to get started?

You shall have Safe Doc deployed in your students' managed Chrome browsers.

Safe Doc is configured by enterprise policies in Admin Console. Learn more about Safe Doc Configuration. The blocking image searching is managed by policy EnableImageSearch. If the policy is not set or false, Safe Doc enforces blocking the image searching. If the policy is set to true, the image searching blocking is not enforced.

"EnableImageSearch": {
  "Value": false
}

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You may also need to Disable Inserting Image By URL in Docs Editors or Block Youtube Video Search in Google Slides, Forms, Hangouts, Classroom and Sites.