Moving Files from Google My Drive to a Google Shared Drive
A Shared Drive (*formerly called Team Drive) is a place where departments or official student groups can create, store, and search files/new Google Sites, without having to manage who owns what because the team owns the files/sites, not individuals. And if someone with access to the Shared Drive leaves the team, the files stay in the Shared Drive. You can belong to multiple Shared Drives, and they'll all be available wherever you access your My Drive. Shared Drives work very similarly to your Google My Drive.
Learn more about using Shared Drives.
Learn more about Roles and Permissions in Shared Drives.
In this article you will learn:
- Moving Multiple Files over from My Drive to a Shared Drive Efficiently
- Moving a File While Viewing It
- Downloading a My Drive File or Folder and Uploading it to a Shared Drive
- Permissions: Share > "People with Access"
Moving Multiple Files over from My Drive to a Shared Drive Efficiently
Managers of the Shared Drive decide, and have full control over, the folder structure so it is important to decide where files should go, what folders to recreate, and what should move over from a My Drive. Please note that Managers can move files over and not folders from My Drive to a Shared drive.
Select multiple files using keyboard shortcuts for efficiency!
See this video: Moving Multiple files from My Drive to a Shared Drive
Moving a File While Viewing It
You can save files to the Shared Drive while viewing them by clicking the Move button near the title of the document:
Note: You cannot move (or create) Google Forms with File Upload questions to Shared Drives
Downloading a My Drive File or Folder and Uploading it to a Shared Drive
You can download any file or folder that is shared with you in My Drive and then upload the folders and files to a Shared Drive.
- To download a folder or file right-click on it and select Download.
- This will convert all Google native files (Documents, Slides, and Sheets) to its comparable Microsoft file (Word, Powerpoint, and Excel). This will not affect editing of these files. You can edit a Word file just like you would edit a Doc in Google Drive.
- Then open your Shared Drive, right-click in the workspace area and select upload file or folder
Permissions: Share > "People with Access"
When you drag files over from My Drive to a Share Drive, they will
- RETAIN the editors, commenters, and viewers of the file (as Guests) and
- GAIN the managers, members, contributors, and viewers of the Share Drive (as Members)
Any members of the Shared Drive are added as Members to the document. You can click Share to look up Guests and Members.