Google shared drives (formerly Team Drives) are a feature in Google Workspace for Education. They offer shared space in Google Drive where teams can create, store, search, collaborate on, and access all their team-owned files. The difference between a shared drive and My Drive is that all data (files and folders) are owned by a group or team rather than an individual. This document provides an overview of shared drives in U-M Google.
Data that is not collaborative and/or does not necessitate the real-time collaborative features Google Drive offers should be stored in a more applicable location, such as a U-M Dropbox Team Folder or another university-provided storage service.
Table of Contents
Create a Shared Drive
Use the ITS Shared Drive Manager tool to create a Google shared drive. Refer below for additional information to help you complete the form. After submitting the form, check your Google Drive for the new shared drive. On average, it takes a few hours for the shared drive to appear in your Google Drive after submitting the form. However, it may take up to 24 hours in some cases. You and the other Managers will receive an email when it is created and ready for use.
Note: Shared drives have a 15GB storage limit. To check your current storage usage, navigate to the shared drive and click the information "i" icon in the top right corner of the page. You will find the drive's storage usage under Drive details > Storage used in the sidebar.
Naming conventions
Outside of the naming conventions listed below, groups/teams can customize shared drive names as they see fit.
Prefixes
When creating a shared drive, a prefix will automatically be attached to your shared drive's name. The prefix is based on the school, college, or unit of which your department is a part. For example, the Chemistry department would have the auto-generated prefix of “LSA-.” We recommend adding the Active Directory abbreviation to the shared drive name to delineate your specific department within the school/college/unit. (E.g., “CHEM-DriveName” would appear as “LSA-CHEM-DriveName.”)
All students with no departmental employment will have the prefix "STUDENT" when creating a shared drive. If you need the shared drive with a specific departmental prefix, you will need to have someone who works for that department assigned as a Manager of the drive. They could then change the prefix using the ITS Shared Drive Manager tool.
Note: This prefix cannot be removed. If you chose the wrong school/college/unit from the drop-down menu when filling out the form, you can edit it using the ITS Shared Drive Manager tool. If you believe the prefix provided to you in the form is incorrect (e.g., your department is not under that school, college, or unit), contact the ITS Service Center. (Please note that ITS uses official departmental data from HR to populate the prefixes.)
Limitations
Shared drive names may only contain alphanumeric characters, hyphens (-), dashes (—), pipes (|), underscores (_), and nonconsecutive spaces.
Ownership, maintenance, and annual renewal
The individual who creates a shared drive in the ITS Shared Drive Manager is automatically assigned as a Manager to the drive. However, you are required to provide at least one additional individual as a Manager when you fill out the form to share responsibility for managing and renewing this drive.
You can add up to 50 Managers to your shared drive (including yourself), with a minimum of two required. The drive requires two Managers to ensure redundancy if it loses an eligible Manager due to affiliation changes. There are no exceptions to this policy.
The additional Manager(s) must be eligible to create a shared drive (i.e., faculty, regular staff, or student). If a Manager is not eligible, you cannot submit the form and must provide a different uniqname for someone eligible.
Note: Shared drives created before March 10, 2024 (including those not created in the ITS Shared Drive Manager tool) have until December 6, 2024, to import and/or renew the drive before they are deactivated and scheduled for deletion. However, we recommend that you do so sooner rather than later. The process requires one eligible Manager to complete and should only take a few minutes. Affected shared drives should have received at least one ITS communication detailing how they’re affected and the steps they need to take.
As the responsible parties:
- You will be responsible for your shared drive's maintenance and annual renewal.
- The annual renewal process requires one eligible Manager to complete it once a year and should only take a few minutes. Refer to Renew a Shared Drive for instructions.
- All Managers will be notified by email 30 days before the drive expires and asked to use the ITS Shared Drive Manager tool to renew it.
- If no action is taken to renew the drive before its expiration, it will be deactivated and scheduled for deletion.
- If you or another Manager should no longer be responsible for this shared drive, you must remove the Manager using the ITS Shared Drive Manager tool. It is important to note that you cannot remove yourself as a Manager - another Manager must use the tool to remove you.
If an individual's role should be changed from Manager to another, you should remove them using the tool and assign them directly to the drive in Google with their new role.
Edit Your Shared Drive
When making changes to your shared drive, such as updating the name or deleting the drive, you will use the ITS Shared Drive Manager tool or the Google Drive interface. The table below lists common actions taken on shared drives and where you should go to make the changes.
Note: The information below has been updated to accommodate the new annual renewal process (discussed above), which requires all shared drives to be imported into and managed via the ITS Shared Drive Manager tool. Previously, shared drives created before January 3, 2023, could rename and add/remove Managers in Google.
| Action | Make the change within... |
|---|---|
| Rename the shared drive | |
| Update departmental prefix (in front of shared drive name) | ITS Shared Drive Manager tool |
| Add or remove Managers |
Note: You cannot remove yourself as a Manager and must ask another Manager to remove you using the tool. |
| Add or remove Content Managers, Contributors, Commenters, and Viewers | Your Google shared drive |
| Manage files and folders | Your Google shared drive |
| Change shared drive settings | Your Google shared drive |
| Delete shared drive | Your Google shared drive |
Sharing and Permissions
Adding collaborators to shared drives and the subfolders and files within the drive can be managed by using MCommunity groups or individual invitations. Shared links can also be used for sharing subfolders and files within the drive.
Important: External users (i.e., [email protected] email addresses) within an MCommunity group do not sync to U-M Google. You will need to invite them individually at the shared drive, subfolder, or file levels.
A few things to note:
- Managers must be added or removed via the ITS Shared Drive Manager tool.
- You can’t assign the Manager role to individuals shared on subfolders. You can only assign the Content Manager, Contributor, Commenter, or Viewer roles.
- File-level sharing has the same permission roles as files in My Drive (i.e., Editor, Commenter, and Viewer).
- When you share with someone at the subfolder level, the user will only see that subfolder in the Shared with me section of their Google Drive. They will not find the shared drive listed on their shared drives page.
- You can share files and subfolders in a shared drive with external users who have no Google account. You cannot add them as members of a shared drive at the root level and they cannot own data in it.
- When moving files and folders from My Drive to a shared drive, permissions explicitly granted on those files/folders will be preserved. Permissions inherited from folders are not preserved.
- Files and folders of which another person is the owner can be moved into a shared drive, even if the owner is not a member of the shared drive. However:
- The person who moves the file must be an Editor on the file and at least a Contributor of the shared drive.
- The person who moves the folder must be an Editor on the folder and a Manager of the shared drive.
Role permissions
| Action | Manager | Content Manager | Contributor | Commenter | Viewer |
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| View files and folders |  |
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| Comment on files | |
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| Edit files | |
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Create files and folders |
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| Share and unshare files with specific people (i.e., non-members) | |
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Move files from My Drive to a shared drive |
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| Restore files/folders from trash (up to 30 days) | |
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Move files/folders within a shared drive |
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| Delete files/folders | |
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| Share and unshare folders with specific people (i.e., non-members) | |
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| Move files/folders from one shared drive to another | |
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| Move folders from My Drive to a shared drive | |
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| Add/remove members of the shared drive | |
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| Change shared drive access levels of members | |
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| Rename shared drives | |
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Delete shared drives Note: All files/folders must first be deleted from the shared drive. |
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| Modify shared drives settings | |
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| Permanently delete files in the trash | |
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Best Practices and Tips
- Review the shared drive limits and watch for these technical limitations when moving data or organizing content. For example, shared drives can contain a maximum of 500,000 items, including files, folders, shortcuts, and items in the trash. Also, a folder in a shared drive can have up to 100 levels of nested folders.
- Use caution when moving complex folder structures from My Drive to a shared drive. Folders with complex ownership and permission structures are likely to result in failed moves and misplaced data. You should always speak with the owner of the folder structure before moving it to a shared drive. Refer to Transfer Ownership of Files and Folders in Google Drive for instructions on how to move folders to a shared drive. (ITS cannot assist with moving files or folders from My Drive to shared drives.)
- Requests for access to shared drive files go only to the file creator. If the file creator is no longer a member of the shared drive, the requests will be sent to the shared drive Managers.
- A Google account is needed to become a member of a shared drive. You can share files and folders with users who do not have Google accounts via visitor sharing. However, to be a member of a shared drive, the invited user must have an email address associated with a Google account.