Shared Drives for Business Continuity
When using Google Workspace, it's important to consider whether institutional files should be stored in your My Drive or a shared drive.
Remember that My Drive is your personal storage space for files you own, while shared drives are designed for team collaboration and support business continuity.
Shared drives provide a centralized location where teams, units, departments, or official student groups can create, store, and search for files. The key advantage of shared drives is that they ensure continued access to institutional data, even as team members change, because the drive owns the files, not individuals.
Learn more about the differences between My Drive and shared drive.
Create a shared drive
You can belong to multiple shared drives, all of which are accessible wherever you access your My Drive.
Anyone with a Stanford Google Workspace account can create a new Google shared drive. Access permissions can be managed at the drive level or through Google Groups to simplify control and maintain consistency. This flexibility allows for efficient and granular management. Learn more about how to create and manage a shared drive, including best practices for access control.
Important guidance about shared drives
To support the academic, research, and administrative needs of our community, there are currently no limits on the number of shared drives that students, faculty, and staff can create.
While this service is provided without limits, we will regularly review usage patterns. Should we identify any instance of possible misuse or misinterpretation of the free storage offering, we will work directly with the drive manager(s) to address the concern. The Google Optimization Project team may implement policy updates in the future if necessary to maintain the long-term sustainability of this valuable service.
Migrate files from My Drive to shared drive
You can transfer files you own from your My Drive to a shared drive, provided you have the necessary permissions. Once the transfer is complete, the files will only be accessible in the destination shared drive only.
- Transfer limit: Keep in mind that you can only manually move 100,000 items at a time.
- Browser compatibility: For the best experience, use the latest version of Google Chrome.
- Organization: To streamline the transfer process, put your data into folders.
- Storage capacity: Assess the volume of how data you plan to transfer, and make sure the 5 TB storage limit on the Google shared drive is sufficient.
- Additional resources: For more information, refer to these resources:
- On the university IT site: Migrate Files to Shared Drives
- On the Google Drive Help site: Move files & folders into shared drives
Shared drive resources
| RESOURCE | WEBSITE | WHY YOU NEED IT |
|---|---|---|
| My Drives vs. Shared Drives | University IT | Learn more about the differences between My Drive and shared drive to determine which is the best place for your data |
| Create a Google Drive | University IT | Learn more about leveraging Google Groups to manage a shared drive |
| Migrate Files to Google Shared Drives | University IT | View tips to help you move files to a shared drive |
| Create a Shared Drive | Google Drive Help | Learn how to create a new shared drive |
| Upload files and folders to Google Drive | Google Drive Help | Learn how to upload files and folders to a Google drive |
Get support
If you require technical assistance, here's how to get help:
- Faculty and staff can submit a Help request.
- Students should contact Student Technical Support.
