Microsoft Intune will be ending support for device administrator management on devices with access to Google Mobile Services (GMS), beginning December 31, 2024. You will now have to use alternate Intune Android management options going forward.
Microsoft Intune uses Google Mobile Services (GMS) to communicate with the Microsoft Intune company portal when managing Android devices. Microsoft in their official Intune blog announced that the support for android device administrator on device that have access to GMS cannot be used after December 2024.
In the screenshot below, you can see the following message box appears when you attempt to create a android device administrator profile in Microsoft Intune.
“December 31, 2024 marks the end of Microsoft Intune support for Android device administrator management on devices with access to Google Mobile Services (GMS). Use alternate Intune Android management options instead“
Intune ends support for Android device administrator
So, how does your organization get impacted with Intune ending support for android device administrator on devices with GMS? Let’s understand that.
For devices with access to GMS
After Intune ends support for Android device administrator, devices with access to GMS will be impacted in the following ways:
- Users won’t be able to enroll their devices with Android device administrator.
- Intune won’t make changes or updates to Android device administrator management, such as bug fixes, security fixes, or fixes to address changes in new Android versions.
- Intune technical support will no longer support these devices.
For devices without access to GMS
For devices without GMS access running Android 14 or earlier, Microsoft will continue allowing device administrator enrollment and will maintain limited support.
However you should consider moving off device administrator management since Google’s device administrator deprecation could impact functionality in the future. For personal devices, consider moving them to management with app protection policies, and for corporate Intune AOSP supported devices, use AOSP user-associated or AOSP userless management.
Alternatives to Android device administrator
Intune offers many alternatives to device administrator that provide rich functionality for the many different scenarios for which you use device administrator today. The list below by Microsoft provides suggested alternate management methods for common device administrator use cases.
- Personal device with access to GMS: Personally-owned work profile and/or app protection policies. See move from Android device administrator to personally-owned work profile management and move from Android device administrator to mobile application management for guidance.
- Corporate device with access to GMS: Corporate-owned work profile, fully managed, or dedicated. If desired, combine with app protection policies.
- Personal device without access to GMS: App protection policies.
- Corporate device without access to GMS: For Intune AOSP supported devices, use AOSP user-associated or AOSP userless.
- Teams devices: These devices will be migrated to AOSP user-associated management with a firmware update in the first half of the 2024 calendar year.
How to Identify device administrator devices in Intune
You can check your Intune reporting to see which devices and users may be affected. Go to Devices > All devices and filter the OS column to Android (device administrator) to see the list of devices. Here you can find all the device administrator devices in Microsoft Intune.