How to Manage Permissions in Google Drive; Control What Gets Shared
If you own a Chromebook, you will quickly come to the realization that Google Drive plays an integral part in the whole Chrome OS experience.
Chromebook storage hardware usually starts at around 16GB and let’s be honest, that isn’t remotely enough if your work involves videoes or other large files. Because of this, if your daily driver is a Chromebook, you are advertently forced to rely on Google Drive a lot.
In a way. this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, Google Drive offers some of the best cloud services and Google usually bundles it with new Chromebook purchases with a 100GB/12-month free trial generously handed out.
Google Drive not only functions as a safe keeper of your most important files but it also creates an environment where you can collaboratively work with colleagues on said files by allowing you to give access where others can see, edit and add comments to docs and sheets.
If collaborative work is what you do often, sharing your Google Drive files with others should be a regular occurrence and it can be easy to forget exactly which person has access to what.
In this piece, I am going to walk you through finding out who you’d have given permissions to and if the need arises, revoking said permissions on Google Drive.
Checking Who Has Access to a Specific File
If you are unsure about who has access to a file you shared, you can manually look at the list of people the said file os shared with by following these steps.
- Find the specific file or folder in your Google Drive and then right-click it and select Share –or if you are feeling lazy, the icon is located on the far right of the screen–from the menu.
- If the file in question has been shared with anyone their names should be listed in the window that pops up, right under People.
How to Stop Sharing An Already Shared File Within Google Drive
You can take it a step further on how you want to modify permissions granted to others on Google Drive. For example, you can stop sharing an already shared file by following these steps.
- Head to Google Drive and select a file or folder you want to modify permissions for.
- Click Share to open the window showing the listed names of people the file or folder is already shared with
- At the bottom right of the “Share with others” window, you should see “Advanced” click it to access the options.
- Next to the person, you want to stop sharing with, click Delete or the X button.
- Click Save changes.
Turning Off Sharable Links Within Google Drive
There are two methods for sharing a file on Google Drive. You can either share it through email invitation or using a sharable link and sharable links can be switched off too.
To turn off sharable links. follow these simple steps.
- In Google Drive, Open or select a file.
- Click Share as in the previous steps.
- Next to “Anyone with the link,” click the down arrow to reveal more options.
- Click More.
- Click the circle next to “Off – Specific people” to turn off the shared link for the file
- Click Save.
How To Nuke a File On Google Drive
Okay, this might seem trivial but if for some reason you feel you no longer need a file even a shared one and want to get rid of it from your Google Drive storage, the method is simple. However, deleting only –which moves it to trash– won’t stop people it is shared with from editing, viewing and adding comments.
- To permanently obliterate a file from Google Drive storage, click the file in your trash, and click Delete forever. This permanently removes the file everywhere.
Have questions about Google Drive files, drop them in the comments and I’d be happy to assist.
