Google Shared Drives is a cost recovery service offered to UGA faculty and staff.
Shared Drives offer a collaboration space within Google Drive. With a Google Shared Drive, files are “owned” by the Shared Drive and the members of the Shared Drive, instead of an individual.
Storing files in a Shared Drive ensures that the team is responsible for the data rather than each individual being responsible for their own documents, and helps to ensure files critical to team work and collaboration are not gone when an individual leaves UGA.
Faculty and staff may purchase Shared Drive storage in 100GB increments.
Google Shared Drive creation
Faculty and staff who have purchased Shared Drive storage will have a Shared Drive created for them by a Google Workspace Administrator.
Google offers help documentation with tips using Shared Drives.
Viewing Shared Drives and Storage Used
To see Shared Drives that you manage or have access to, log into http://gdrive.uga.edu, then click on Shared drives in the left menu.
Shared Drive Managers can see their quota by clicking on the Shared Drive name, then clicking the i in the upper right corner of the screen. Storage used will be in the Drive details section in the right hand panel.
Transferring ownership of a Shared Drive
We strongly encourage you to designate at least two members of a Shared Drive as managers, in the event that you are unable to manage the Shared Drive yourself. We also strongly encourage adding a Departmental MyID as a manager of a Shared Drive.
Read more about Shared Drive access levels.
Restoring Deleted Files
If any files are accidentally deleted from a Google Shared Drive, you have 30 days to restore it from the Shared Drive trash before they are automatically deleted.
Google Drive for Desktop
Google Drive for Desktop is a file syncing tool designed that allows you to view Google Drive and Google Shared Drive files on your local device, analogous to a disk drive. Click here to download.
Uploading files and folders to Google Drive from a device
You can upload files and folders from your local device to a Shared Drive in the same way you would upload files to your Google Drive. See instructions at Upload Files and Folders to Google Drive.
Migrating files from a personal Drive to Shared Drive
You can also move files from your personal Google Drive to a Google Shared Drive. Please note the following when moving files:
- You cannot move a folder from your personal Drive to a Shared Drive. You must recreate the folder in the Shared Drive, then move the files, though you can move multiple files at one time.
- Folder permissions are not moved. If you have given other users access to a folder on your personal Drive, be sure to grant those permissions again in Shared Drive.
- You cannot move a file in your personal Drive that is owned by another user to a Shared Drive, since you are not the owner of the file. To move file(s) to a Shared Drive, first select the file(s) you want to move then right-click and select Make a copy. You can then move the “Copy of” file(s) that are created to a Shared Drive, since you are the owner of the file(s).
- Moving a file to a Shared Drive changes ownership of the file from an individual to the Shared Drive.
Best practices when migrating files to a Google Shared Drive
When migrating files to a Shared Drive from your personal Google Drive, do not drag and drop the files. Permissions may transfer incorrectly. Instead, follow the steps below to move the files.
- Log in to Google Drive with your MyID and password, then locate the file(s) you want to move.
- Select file(s) by clicking on a single file, holding the Shift key to select a list of consecutive files, or holding the Ctrl key while selecting multiple nonconsecutive files.
- Right-click on a file you have selected and select Move to…
- In the dropdown list, you will see a list of folders on your My Drive. To the left of My Drive, click on the left arrow icon.
- In the dropdown list of available drives, click on Shared Drives.
- Select the desired Shared Drive and folder where you want to move the files.
- Click the Move Here button.
Using Google Drive for Desktop to move or copy files from a Google Drive to a Google Shared Drive
Google Drive for Desktop will move files from Google Drive to a Shared Drive.
However, when copying files, only non-Google file types will be copied (e.g. Microsoft Word files, JPG files, Adobe Acrobat PDF files, etc.). You cannot copy Google files (e.g. Google Docs files, Google Sheets files, etc.) from a Google Drive to a Shared Drive using Google Drive for Desktop. You will need to move it instead.