• Guides and help
• Tools, software and services
  • My IT Account
  • Files and storage
  • Software
  • Information systems
  • Equipment
  • Computer labs
  • Print, copy and scan
  • IT accessibility
  • Research computing
  • Unified communications and telephony
• Service status
• IT security
• IT training
• About us
• Contact us

Shared drives

Shared Drives are a part of Google Drive. For detailed guidance on Shared Drives and how they work differently to My Drive, please see our Practical Guide to Google Drive.

Some key points:

• Using Shared Drives allows a team or group to create shared documents without the risk of losing access to them when a document owner leaves. This is because all files belong to the Drive itself and not one individual owner, so members can be added and removed to the Shared Drive without affecting ownership of the files. This is useful for files that belong to a particular role/group rather than an individual.
• There are different levels of access that can be given to Shared Drives for different users (Manager, Content Manager, Contributor, Commenter and Viewer). These are slightly different to the levels of access available within My Drive. For information on exactly what permissions are given for each level of access, see our Practical Guide to Google Drive.
• Files can be moved to and from a Shared Drive by anyone with the appropriate level of access. Files can also be deleted from a Shared Drive - they would then go to the Bin for the Shared Drive for 30 days before being deleted forever (unless a Manager of the Shared Drive restored the files before the 30 days passed).
• It's also now possible for users to move folders into a Shared Drive (previously this was not possible). See our guidance on how to move folders from My Drive to Shared Drive.
• You can use Shared Drives to keep files that can be viewed only by its members, but still share individual files and folders with non-members. This is a more secure option to ensure someone only sees relevant files, instead of needing to give someone full access to a Shared Drive.