Google Shared Drives
Shared Drives are collaborative spaces where teams can store their files and guarantee that every member has the most up-to-date information.
What makes Shared Drives special?
- Every person and Google Group added to a Shared Drive gets instant access to that team’s documents.
- Shared Drives are designed to store the team’s work collectively, so if a document’s creator moves off of the team that document doesn’t go with them.
- Team members are prevented from accidentally removing or deleting files that others need.
Your entire team, as defined and maintained by the team leader, will be able to see the Shared Drive in their Google Drive and browse, navigate and search through it. For most effective use, Shared Drive searches can be limited to that shared drive space only.
Shared Drive Support From Google
Confidential Information
When working with confidential information, be aware that every person in the shared drive will also be able to access that data. If you are going to save to a shared drive, make sure that everyone in the drive should be able to see this information.
If it is something that only select individuals should have access to, we recommend saving to your personal Google Drive (rather than a team drive) and then sharing it with individual users.
How to Request a Shared Drive
To request a Shared Drive for your department, please contact the Help Desk. If approved, the Help Desk will create the drive, and then send it back to the requester with the requester as the admin of the space to add more team members. Please do not attempt to set up your own team drive at this time.
File Management with Shared Drives
- Once your Shared Drive has been set up, you may add files as you normally would with your own Drive. Remember that all files added will be visible to all team members, so make sure you are only putting files in a Shared Drive that are meant for everyone.
- Similar to your own Drive, all files in Shared Drives can be starred as important, moved or deleted completely. There are certain restrictions to these abilities depending on your permissions for the Shared Drive, for example, a user with comment access cannot remove a file.
- Any files placed in Shared Drives are automatically shared with all members of the Shared Drive. You can still share Shared Drive files with people in your organization who aren’t members of the Shared Drive and give them varying levels of rights (admin, read/write, read-only and comment), but the rights levels apply to the drive as a whole for that person.