Understand Google Shared Drive basics

Owned by Jered Benoit
Last updated: Oct 03, 2022 by Janna Dougherty
3 min read

Shared Drives vs. Galileo

The two tools supported by CNU for group file storage are Shared Drives and the Collaborative area on Galileo, also known as the Z drive on Windows machines.  The table below will give you an idea of the differences between the two




Shared Drives (formerly called Team Drives)

Galileo

File types allowed

All file types and Google documents

All file types

New top level folders/drives created by

Any CNU user

ITS

Access managed by

Those given Full Access on the team drive

ITS

Off-campus Accessible

Yes

Only with VPN

File location

Google Datacenters

On campus

Access files directly on your computer?

No

Yes, automatically on Windows, manually on Mac

Access files through web browser?

Yes

No

Files sharable with external users?

Yes

No


Creating a Shared Drive

Creating a Shared Drive is simple.  Log in to your Google Drive, and click the Shared Drives button.  

Google Shared Drives


With Shared Drives highlighted, click the New button.


New Shared Drive Button


A box will pop up asking you to name your drive.  Type the name and click Create.


Create New Shared Drive


After a brief wait, you’ll be taken to your Shared drive.

Adding Users to your Shared Drive

To add users to your Shared Drive, click the Manage Members button at the top of the drive.

Manage Members Shared Drive


A box will pop up allowing you to add people to the drive.  Begin typing their name or e-mail address on the top.


Shared Drive Add Members


The box below the names gives you choices on how much access to give the person.
Shared Drive Member Roles


Your choices are:

  • Manager: Has all the access that the original creator has.  This person can upload, edit, and delete files, as well as add and remove people’s access to the drive.

  • Contributer: This person can upload and edit files, but can’t move or delete them.  They also can’t add or remove people from the drive.

  • Content Manager : Can upload, edit, move, and delete files, but cannot add or remove people from the drive. 

  • Commenter: This person can add comments to Google documents and view files, but can’t make any changes.

  • Viewer: This person can view and download files, but can’t make any changes to the ones on the drive.


You can then enter a message explaining that you’ve added them to the drive.  When you’re done, click Send and the person will be added to the drive.  They will receive an e-mail letting them know they’ve been added.

Shared Drive New Member Message



Removing People from the Drive

If one of the people on the Shared Drive leaves CNU, they will lose access to their Google account, and thereby the Team Drive.  However, if they still have a CNU Google account, they will need to be removed from the Team Drive by someone with Full access.


To do so, click on the name of the Team Drive and choose Manage Members.

Shared Drive Manage Members


You can then click on the dropdown next to the person whose access you would like to change. To remove them, choose Remove member from the list.

Shared Drive Remove Member


Click Done when you’re finished.


Using your Shared Drive

The Shared Drive functions just like a regular Google Drive.  See the Google Drive documentation for more information on uploading and managing files within your Share Drive.