What Are Shared Drives: Quick Introduction to Get Started

Quick and easy-to-follow guide for Google Drive users

What are shared drives: getting started

  • The shared drive is the group version of Google Drive, where multiple users can work in a single Google Drive together.
  • Each user only has a single My Drive tied to their account, but they can access multiple shared drives.

Shared drives storage quota and limits

  • Shared drives have an unlimited storage quota, so uploading files doesn’t take up the user’s storage quota.

How to grant people access to a shared drive

  • To grant someone access to a shared drive, you add them as a member.
  • Each member can upload files and folders to the shared drive.
  • Instead of each user having exclusive ownership rights, the shared drive itself is the owner of all content uploaded there.

Shared drive member permissions

Shared drives have similar access permission settings to content in My Drive. There are two types of permissions in shared drives:

  • Member permissions – for users granted access to the shared drive itself, either directly or through a group. Members can view the shared drive’s data. They have access to all files within the shared drive, with the access level depending on the role given to the member (e.g., reader, writer).

Shared drive file access permissions

  • File access permissions – for users granted access to specific files in the shared drive. For example, sharing a single file with a user creates an individual file access permission.

Start setting up your first shared drive

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