Google Workspace shared drives are team spaces in Google Drive where files belong to your organization rather than to the person who made them, so the work stays put when someone leaves. You create them in Drive, not the Admin console, and as of October 2026 a shared drive can hold 600 members added one by one, or up to 100 groups and 50,000 people through groups.
The catch is ownership. When you move a file you created into a shared drive, you're still its creator but you're no longer its owner, and if the drive's permissions change you can lose access to your own file. Moving content in can also lock out people who only had access through a parent folder, because inherited permissions aren't copied.
Who can create a shared drive
Shared drives are only for work or school accounts, and you can create one only if your edition supports them and your admin allows it. For Business and Enterprise editions, everyone can create shared drives by default. For Education customers, creation is turned off by default. Business Starter supports shared drives, but its sharing settings are all set to allow and can't be tightened.
People on Frontline Starter, Frontline Standard, G Suite Basic or Cloud Identity licenses can join your internal shared drives only as Viewers, and they can't upload files even as members.
- Go to drive.google.com and click Shared drives on the left.
- Click New, enter a name and click Create.
- Open the drive and click Manage members at the top.
- Add names, email addresses or a Google Group. New members are Content managers by default, so change the role in the dropdown if needed.
- Choose whether to notify people, then click Send.
What each access level can do
| Access level | What it adds |
|---|---|
| Viewer | Can view files and folders |
| Commenter | Can also comment on files |
| Contributor | Can also edit, create and add files, share specific files, restore from the Trash within 30 days and move files in from My Drive, but can't delete |
| Content manager | Can also move files to the Trash, move items within the drive and share folders |
| Manager | Can also add or remove members, change access levels, set limited-access folders, move folders in, move files between shared drives, permanently delete, rename and delete the drive |
There's a desktop wrinkle. In Google Drive for desktop or the Chrome OS Files app, Contributor access is read-only, so anyone editing files that way needs Content manager or Manager access. Google's own tip is to give people Contributor or lower if you're worried about them deleting things.
How sharing works inside a drive
Every member can see every file and folder, with one exception: limited-access folders, which only Managers and people added directly can open. Other members still see the folder's name. Apart from that, you can't make a folder more restrictive than the drive itself, so a Commenter can't be dropped to Viewer on one folder.
Managers can block sharing with outsiders or non-members, stop Content managers sharing folders, and stop lower roles downloading, copying or printing. These rules override file sharing. If you switch off external sharing, an outside person loses access to a file, but their permission stays on it, so switching it back on restores their access. Requests to join a drive go to its Managers, while requests for a file go to whoever created it first.
Moving folders in and out
Only people with Manager access to both the original and the target location can move folders into or between shared drives. After the move, anyone who had Editor access to the folder becomes a Content manager, and previously hidden files become visible to all members.
Admins moving large folders hit hard limits. You can't move more than 100,000 items at once, a shared drive can't go over 500,000 items or 20 nested folders, and a folder move is rejected if 25 or more items can't be moved. Unmovable items get a shortcut in the shared drive and go to the root of their owner's My Drive.
Moving a file back out to My Drive restores its original sharing. Google's example is a Sales drive where everyone has Viewer access and five people were also given Editor access directly. Move that file out and most of the team loses it, while those five keep editing.
What admins control from the Admin console
Under Apps, Google Workspace, Drive and Docs, the Manage shared drives page lets you add or remove members and change access levels on any drive, even ones you don't manage, and filter for drives with no members or no managers. Your admin account needs a license that includes Drive and Docs, switched on.
Default sharing settings apply only to new shared drives, and changes can take up to 24 hours. You can also decide who may move content to drives owned by another organization: anyone, only users in your organization, or no one. If Google disables a drive for breaking its terms, you've got 29 days to appeal, or it's deleted automatically.
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Fixing the usual shared drive problems
- A user can't create a shared drive: check their license, then the Shared drive creation setting for their organizational unit or configuration group.
- A drive has no manager: adding and removing members is then only possible in the Admin console, so promote a member to Manager.
- A drive has no members: only people with files shared directly can get in, so add at least one member or group.
- Someone gets a 403 error when moving a folder: check they've got Manager access on the original shared drive.
- You can't delete a drive: it has to be empty and you need Manager access. If it's just clutter, hide it instead.
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My verdict on shared drives
I'd put anything a team owns together, such as project plans, research results and team meeting notes, into shared drives from day one, and keep personal files like one-on-one meeting notes in My Drive, which is exactly what Google recommends. I'd skip moving everything in a single weekend, because inherited access breaks quietly. If you're still choosing a platform, compare Dropbox or Google Drive and Google Drive or SharePoint first.
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Frequently asked questions
Who owns the files in a Google Workspace shared drive?
Your organization does, not the individual. Files persist even if the person who created them leaves your organization.
How many members can a Google shared drive have?
You can add up to 600 people individually. Using groups, you can add up to 100 groups and up to 50,000 people.
What happens when I remove someone from a shared drive?
They lose access to the drive and to any files and folders in it that were shared with them directly.
Can I delete a shared drive that still has files in it?
No. The shared drive has to be empty and you need Manager access. If you're not ready to delete it, you can hide it instead.
Can Business Starter change shared drive sharing settings?
No. On Business Starter all shared drive sharing settings are set to allow, and you can only reset them so all sharing is allowed.
