Stop, limit, or change sharing - Computer (original) (raw)
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After you share a file, you can stop sharing at any time. You can also control if people you've shared with can change or share your file.
Tips:
- When you update permissions for an item in My Drive, you may be prompted to manage permissions for the folder it's in. This happens if you try to give someone less access to the item than they inherit from the parent folder.
- This ensures consistent access across the entire folder.
Stop sharing a file
Important:
- If you share a file with people, the owner and anyone with edit access can change sharing permissions and share the file.
- If you don’t want anyone to publicly access your file, stop publishing the file.
- If you remove or reduce access for a person who has access to the item’s folder, the permission is either removed or changed for the entire folder.
Find who has a access to a file
- On your computer, find the file or folder in Google Drive.
- To find out If a file or folder is shared:
- A panel opens and shows who owns and has access to the file.
- If you have permission to make changes, click Manage access.
Stop sharing a file or folder
Restrict general access for a file or folder
When you change an item's general access to Restricted, only people with access can open the file. This overrides inherited parent folder permissions.
Delete a shared file
If you delete a shared file that you own:
- People that can view, comment, or edit can make a copy of the file until you permanently delete it.
- To permanently delete the file, click the file in your trash, and click Delete forever
. Learn more about deleting files.
If you delete a shared file that you don’t own:
Limit how your files are shared
Prevent people from downloading, printing, or copying your file
If you own a file, you can take steps so that users can’t print, copy, or download it:
- Find the file or folder in:
- Select one or more files you want to limit.
- Click Share or Share
.
- At the top right, click Settings
.
- Under “People who can download, copy, and print,” check the boxes that correspond to which user role(s) you want to allow.
If “Editors” are specified, the copy and paste behavior for the selected documents changes to the following:
- Users can copy and paste document content within the document.
- Users can copy and paste outside content into the document.
- Users can’t copy and paste document content outside the document.
To prevent file owners from downloading, copying, and printing, administrators can create a DLP rule for Drive.
Tip: You can limit how people share, print, download, and copy within Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides. However, you can't stop how others share the file content in other ways.
Prevent others from sharing your files
As the owner of the file, you can remove Editors’ ability to change permissions or share the file.
- Open the file in:
- Click Share.
- At the top, click Settings
- Uncheck Editors can change permissions and share.
- Click Done.
Important:
Files and folders within a shared folder always inherit its permissions. This ensures consistent and predictable access across all of your content.
- The folder's permissions control the access for everything it contains.
- If you uncheck "Editors can change permissions and share" on a specific file, permission changes made to the parent folder still apply to that file. The parent folder's permissions are the primary source of truth for access.
- Example scenario:
* You have a file set to "Prevent editors from sharing" inside a folder. You then make someone an Editor of the entire folder. If that Editor shares the whole folder with a new person, that new person will get access to the file.
* This happens because the file's setting only stops someone from sharing the file directly, but it doesn't stop them from sharing the folder it's in.
- Example scenario:
More options with Google Accounts through work or school
Give someone permissions to a file for a limited time
Set an expiration date for a file
Change share settings for Google Forms
Google Forms often have different sharing options than other kinds of files.