When working in a team environment, relying on your personal “My Drive” to share files can quickly become a logistical nightmare. If an employee creates a crucial project folder in their personal drive and later leaves the company, those files leave with them, potentially locking the rest of the team out of vital documents.
The solution is to use a Shared Drive. In Google Workspace (formerly G Suite), Shared Drives belong to the organization rather than an individual. In this guide, we will explain how to create a Shared Drive and manage access permissions for your team.
What You Need Before Starting
It is important to note that Shared Drives are a premium business feature. You cannot create a Shared Drive if you are using a free, personal @gmail.com account.
You must be subscribed to one of the following Google Workspace editions:
- Business Standard or Business Plus
- Enterprise (all editions)
- Education Fundamentals, Standard, or Plus
- Nonprofits
Additionally, your Google Workspace administrator must have granted you the permissions required to create Shared Drives.
Step 1: Create the Shared Drive
If you meet the requirements, creating the drive takes only a few seconds.
- Open your web browser and navigate to drive.google.com. Log into your Google Workspace account.
- In the left-hand navigation menu, look directly below “My Drive” and click on Shared drives.
- Near the top-left corner of the screen, click the large + New button.
- A pop-up window will appear asking you to name the drive. Choose a descriptive name (e.g., “Q3 Marketing Campaigns” or “HR Onboarding”).
- Click the Create button.
The Shared Drive is now active, and you will be placed inside its root directory. As the creator, you are automatically assigned the “Manager” role.
Step 2: Add Members and Assign Permissions
A Shared Drive is useless without team members. You must invite your colleagues and decide exactly how much control they have over the files inside.
- While viewing your new Shared Drive, click on the name of the drive at the top of the screen to open the drop-down menu.
- Select Manage members.
- In the “Add people and groups” box, type the email addresses of the colleagues you want to invite. (You can also type the name of a Google Group to invite an entire department at once).
- Before clicking send, look to the right of the email box. You will see a drop-down menu that dictates their permission level. Select the appropriate role:
- Manager: Can manage members, delete the shared drive, and permanently delete files. Reserve this for department heads.
- Content Manager: The default setting. Can add, edit, move, and delete files. Perfect for standard team members.
- Contributor: Can add and edit files, but cannot delete them. Useful for junior staff or external contractors.
- Commenter: Can only view files and leave comments.
- Viewer: Can only view files. Good for company-wide read-only resources.
- Write an optional welcome message and click the Send button.
Step 3: Migrate Existing Files into the Shared Drive
If your team has been using a standard folder in someone’s “My Drive”, you should move those files into the new Shared Drive to transfer ownership to the organization.
- Navigate to the files or folders in your My Drive that you wish to move.
- Select the files, right-click, and choose Organize > Move (or just Move to).
- In the navigation menu that appears, click the back arrow until you see the top-level list of drives.
- Select Shared drives, choose your new drive, and click Move.
- Google Drive will warn you that ownership of these files will be transferred to your organization. Click Move again to confirm.
By implementing Shared Drives, you eliminate the risk of accidental data loss when employees leave, ensuring your company’s intellectual property remains secure and accessible to the right people.