How to Move Files Within Google Drive

Overview

As a file owner in Stanford Google Workspace, you can transfer ownership to another Stanford colleague or to a shared drive using functionality within Google.

Migrate files to shared drives

Faculty, staff, and students can move files they own from their My Drive to a shared drive for easier collaboration. When files are moved to a shared drive, the ownership changes from the individual to the team. This means if someone leaves Stanford or is removed from the shared drive, their files will remain in the shared drive and continue to be accessible to other members.

Here are some pointers to keep in mind:

Only managers of the shared drive can move folders into it.
Files owned by someone else cannot be moved into a shared drive unless the owner is a member.
Individuals may move files in their My Drive owned by someone else into a shared drive if they have edit access and the owner's account is suspended.

When moving content to a shared drive, the following applies:

Only members of the shared drive and individuals the file is directly shared with will have access to the file.
Non-members of the shared drive may lose access to content that is moved there.
Permissions from parent folders do not transfer; you will need to set file permissions again for the shared drive.

How to migrate files to a shared drive

Follow these steps to move a file from My Drive to a shared drive:

Access your Google My Drive on your computer and locate the file(s) you want to move.
Select the files by clicking on a single file or holding the Shift key while clicking all the files you want to move/transfer ownership.
Select the move icon in the top menu.
Select the shared drive you want to move the file(s) to and click Move.
In the "Move" pane, click the "All locations" tab.
Double-click Shared drives.
Navigate to the drive and folder where you want to move the file(s).
In response to "Change ownership to a shared drive," click Move again to confirm the transfer.

Transfer file ownership to another individual

You can transfer ownership of files you own to a Stanford University colleague. Remember, it's strongly recommended that collaborative data and institutional data owned by Stanford be moved into a shared drive.

Here's what to know before you get started:
Before transferring ownership of a file, the file must first be shared with the individual taking ownership. They must have been granted editor access to the file.
Transferring ownership won’t impact who can access the files—everyone who had permissions before will still have access.
Ownership should be transferred at the file level. Transferring the ownership of a folder will not automatically change the ownership of the files within that folder. Each file will need to have its ownership changed individually.

How to transfer ownership of a file

Follow these steps to transfer ownership of a file you own to another Stanford colleague:

Access your Google My Drive on your computer and locate the file(s) you want to move/transfer ownership of.
Click the Share button. (Note: If the recipient isn't already a collaborator, add their email address and grant them "Editor" access.)
Click the down arrow next to their name and select Transfer ownership.
Click Yes or Save changes to finalize the transfer.

After the transfer is initiated:

A notification will be sent to the new owner, who must accept the transfer request for the change to be finalized.
After successfully transferring ownership, your role will be downgraded to editor. The file will move to your "Shared with me section" in Google Drive, and the new owner will notice the files now appear in their My Drive. You will still be able to edit and access the file unless the new owner changes your access permissions.
You will no longer have the ability to transfer ownership of the file to someone else or permanently delete it from Google Drive.

Other limitations moving folders

You can move a folder from My Drive to a shared drive where you are a manager. You might get notifications about the following issues:
The folder has items that cannot be moved because you don’t have permission or access (unmovable items).
You try to move more than 100,000 items.
The move will result in more than 500,000 items in the shared drive or more than 20 nested folders.
You are trying to move items owned by a non-Stanford Google account.

Note: Folders cannot be moved if there are either 25 unmovable items or if 10% of the items are unmovable. The limit is the smaller of the two. For any items that cannot be relocated due to permission or access issues, a Google Shortcut to the item is created to maintain the existing folder hierarchy.

Learn more at Google Drive Help

To learn more about how file access changes and general problems you could encounter, see Move files and Folders into shared drives.
When using Google Shared drives, you can upload files and folders to a Shared drive in the same way that you upload files to your Google My Drive. To learn more, see Upload Files and Folders to Google Drive.