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You can use shared drives in Google Drive to store, search, and access files with a team. Shared drive files belong to the team instead of an individual. Even if members leave, the files stay in place so your team can keep sharing information and work anywhere, from any device.
Note: If your organization signed up for or upgraded a Google Workspace account before July 2017, you might need to turn on shared drives for your users. For details, go to Manage shared drive users and activity.
About shared drives
Create a shared drive for your projects or team to share information and work.
Feature | Description |
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Find files and folders after an employee leaves | Your organization owns the files in a shared drive, not an individual. When an employee leaves and an admin deletes their account, their files remain in shared drives. |
Improved sharing rules | All members of a shared drive see the same content. |
Content discoverability | Adding a user to a group in Google Groups automatically adds them to all the shared drives that include that group. |
Add external users to shared drives | You can add users outside of your organization to a shared drive. If you do:
|
Synchronize content on your desktop | Users can access their shared drives on their computer using Google Drive for desktop. For details on setting it up for your organization, go to Deploy Drive for desktop. |
Shared drives | My Drive | |
---|---|---|
What types of files can you add? | All file types except files from Google Maps | All file types |
Who owns files and folders? | Your organization | The individual who created the file or folder |
Can I move files and folders onto a drive? |
Users can only move files. Administrators can move files and folders. Learn more. |
Yes |
Can I move files and folders within a drive? |
Yes, if you have Manager or Content Manager access. Note: Only Managers can move files and folders between shared drives. |
Yes |
Can I sync files to my computer? |
With Drive for desktop: Yes With Backup and Sync: No |
Yes |
How does sharing work? | All team members see the same file set. | Different users might see different files in a folder, depending on their access to individual files. |
How long do deleted files stay in Trash? |
|
After 30 days, files and folders in Trash are deleted forever. |
Can I restore files from the trash? | Yes, if you have Manager, Content manager, or Contributor access. | Yes, if you created it. |
As an administrator, you should consider how you want to organize and share your organization’s data when deciding on whether to use My Drive or a shared drive. Review these best practices:
- Share content responsibly—Use shared drives to share content intended for public or organization-wide view. Keep personal and private files in My Drive.
- Improve collaboration—Create a shared drive for each project and assign the highest access level to all team members.
- Increase shared drives usage and visibility—Train your managers and employees on how to use shared drives.
- Organize content—Help users move content from My Drive to shared drives.
- Sharing content—To learn more about sharing files and folders with non-members of a shared drive, go to Control access to files and folders in shared drive. You can also share files and folders with non-Google users by using the visitor sharing feature. Learn more.
- Moving content—Users can move files and folders depending on their role. Learn more how to Move content to a shared drive.
If users in your organization ask you when to create shared drives, think about:
- Are the files of interest to most or all members of a particular project team?
- Do the files share a consistent theme?
If you answered “yes” to both of these questions, creating a new shared drive is a good idea.
If the files are for a variety of projects, create multiple shared drives. As the number of projects and teams increases, it can become difficult to find and manage content in a single shared drive.
Condition | Description |
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Too many files at the root level |
If a shared drive has a large number of files at the root level, one of the following issues can exist:
The shared drive should be reorganized into several new shared drives representing individual projects and functional (or cross-functional) teams. |
Trying to map folders to projects |
Your users might try to create a shared drive to represent a portfolio of projects or programs and then create individual folders for each project. They might ask you about setting different access permissions for each of the folders in the shared drive, which can indicate that the shared drive is oversubscribed. Each of the folders in this scenario should be reorganized into its own individual shared drive. |
Teams debate how folders or files should be organized |
If multiple teams debate about how files and folders in a shared drive should be organized, it can indicate that there are too many projects and teams represented in the shared drive. The shared drive should be reorganized into 2–3 new ones:
|
Include only group content in a shared drive | Users should avoid adding their personal content or notes into a shared drive. Shared drives are meant for shared project files and items that are of interest to an entire team or group. |
Who should be members of a shared drive |
Avoid adding everyone in your organization to a shared drive, unless the content is highly focused. For example, a shared drive containing U.S. benefits information for employees of a U.S.-based company could make a good shared drive. Alternatively, creating a single shared drive for the entire company and then adding a folder called U.S. Benefits might lead to issues with organizing and searching the shared drive. |
Related topics
- Control access to files in shared drives
- User best practices for shared drives
- Shared drive limits for folders, files, members, and uploads