Moving and Sharing Files

Note about sharing with non-Google users: If you want to allow users without a Google account to collaborate on files as visitors, you can share files and folders in shared drives by following these instructions. This visitor sharing feature only works with sharing individual files and folders. You can’t can’t make non-Google users members of a shared drive.

When a file is moved into a shared drive, it keeps its file-sharing permissions. So if an owner sets their file to prevent downloading, copying, and printing, it stays like that after it's moved to a shared drive. Moving files does not affect sharing permissions or user roles, such as Content manager or Viewer.

Users can't share files with anyone outside the shared drive’s restrictions. For example, if a shared drive restricts users outside the organization from accessing the shared drive's content, external users are removed from files in that shared drive in the future.

If you change a shared drive’s restriction settings, this does not automatically remove existing users or change a file’s sharing permissions. For example, assume a user outside the organization is added to a file. Then later on, a restriction is applied to the file's shared drive. In that case, the external user is not removed from the file. This means a user might regain access if restrictions are relaxed in the future.