Collaboration has been built into Google Drive since day one. That means sharing files and folders is a staple of working with others in Google Workspace.
However, the elephant in the room is file ownership. It’s not always clear which file belongs to whom, and it can get messy quickly.
That’s why most of your sharing and collaborating should be in shared drives. There’s one big benefit: everything in a shared drive is owned by the organisation rather than any particular user.
These days I run my own business but still create and use shared drives for any project where I’ll be collaborating with others. It means I know my Google Workspace domain owns all the project files, so no issues with contractors later deleting or moving files without me realising.
Some organisations create shared drives for each department, so when a new starter joins the team, they’re given access and immediately have everything they need. When someone leaves, they’re removed, without any headaches involving transferring ownership to other people.
Create your first Shared drive and add collaborators
- In Google Drive, click ‘Shared drives’ on the left*
- Click the ‘New’ button on the top left
- Give your shared drive a name
- Click on the name of the shared drive
- Choose ‘Manage members’
- Add a person by typing their name or email
- Choose an access level (as described in the dropdown menu) and click ‘Send’
- To create new files in the shared drive, click the ‘New’ button in the top left
- To move files from your own drive into the shared drive, click the small arrow next to ‘My Drive’ on the left, identify the file or folder, then click and drag it into the shared drive
That’s it! You can add granular permissions on individual files and folders if you need to.
Bonus tip
Shared drives are also a handy way to migrate files between Google accounts. Simply create the shared drive, add the account you want to move files to (with the highest access level), and add the files. Then login to the other account and drag the files out of the shared drive into ‘My Drive.’
I hope this resolves some sharing headaches for you and your team!
See you next week for another actionable tip.
Dean
*If you don’t see shared drives on the left hand side, your administrator needs to enable it. You can’t create shared drives on personal Google accounts, but you can be given access to an existing shared drive. If you want to dive deeper into shared drives, check out Google’s own multi-page guide here.