Moving Data from Google My Drive to Shared Drives

What can I move from Google My Drive to Shared drives?

To move files from My Drive to Shared drives:

  • You must have at least the Contributor role in the Shared drive to which you are moving files.
  • You can move files of which you are the Owner.
  • You can move several files at once by multi-selecting.

What cannot be moved to Shared drives?

  • Folders. To move folders in their entirety from My Drive to Shared drive, you will need to request special access by contacting the Help Desk at help@lafayette.edu or (610) 330-5501.
  • Files and documents of which another person is the Owner. This can be circumvented by adding the owner of the files or folders as a member of the destination Shared drive with a minimum of the Contributor role.

How will moving files affect other collaborators?

  • Permissions granted on individual files are preserved even after the files are moved.
    • Note: Permissions assigned to a My Drive folder do not get assigned to individual files contained in that folder when these files are moved. For instance, if frosta@lafayette.edu is given Edit access to a My Drive folder, the files contained inside that folder will not retain the permissions for frosta@lafayette.edu when the files are moved to the destination Share drive.
  • File permissions and links are not changed when moved.
  • People who are not members of the destination Shared drive will still be able to access the file if they were previously granted access to an individual file.
  • After moving, files are no longer available in My Drive, and are only viewable in the destination Shared drive.
  • Files that are moved will remain in a user’s Shared with me and Recent locations on Google Drive if they have recently opened the file or it was shared with them by the owner.

How to move a file into Shared drives

  1. Go to drive.google.com in a web browser.
  2. Drag and drop the file(s) from My Drive to Shared drives using the left sidebar.
  3. The time required to move the file(s) depends on the size of the file(s). A message will appear confirming when the file(s) was moved successfully.
  4. If there are collaborators on the file’s original folder, a message warning that “Some people may lose access” will appear.
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