Manage Files and Folders in My Drive

The following information provides some tips and tricks for working efficiently in Google My Drive.

• Priority Pages: Priority pages allow you curate files from across your My Drive and Shared drives into workspaces. For more information, see Work Smarter with Priority Pages.
• Starred Files: Right-click a file or folder and select Add to Starred to flag it as important and to add it to Starred in the left side menu.
• Drive for Desktop: Drive for Desktop allows you to open your Google Drive content directly on your computer. See Getting Started with Drive for Desktop for more information.
• Shared drives: Shared drives are shared spaces where groups of people can easily store, search, and access files. For more information see Getting Started with Shared Drives.

Share files and folders with others

For information on sharing files and folders with others, see Getting Started with My Drive.

Delete and restore files on My drive

Move a file to the trash

To remove a file from My Drive, put it in your trash either by dragging-and-dropping into Trash on the side menu or right-clicking on it and selecting Remove. Moving a file to the trash does the following:

• If you are the owner of the file, the original is deleted but others you’ve shared the file with will retain a copy if they added it their My Drive.
• If you are not the owner of the file, the file is removed from your My Drive but remains for others in their My Drive.

Recover a file from the trash

Files deleted from My Drive remain in the trash until it is emptied and is therefore available to be recovered. To recover a file, go to the Trash  in the side menu, click on the file in question, and click the [Restore] button .

Empty your trash

Emptying your trash deletes the files in the Trash permanently and can be done for the entire trash:

• In the Trash, click Empty trash at the top right

Or can be done for individual files:

• In the Trash, click on the file and at the top right, click Delete forever.

Note: Any files that are permanently deleted from your Trash will be also be permanently deleted for anyone the file has been shared with if you are the owner of the file.

Transfer ownership of My Drive content

You can transfer ownership of your My Drive files and folders to the Google account of someone else at Lafayette. You may want to do this if you are leaving the college and someone else should take ownership of the files/folders once you leave. See Changing ownership of a Google My Drive File for more information.