Google Drive: Store Your Private Files in My Drive and Department Files in Shared Drives

Learn why you should store personal files in My Drive and department-critical documents in Shared Drives, and see how to set up and manage Shared Drives so your team never loses access.

Store your personal files in My Drive, and put all files your department relies on into a Shared Drive. This ensures your private work stays yours, while critical team documents remain owned and accessible by everyone who needs them.

Detailed Information

Why Shared Drives?

• Team Ownership
  Files belong to the Shared Drive itself, not to an individual. If someone leaves or loses access, the department still retains its documents.

• Multiple Managers
  Assign two or more managers per drive. Managers can add/remove members, adjust access levels, and restore deleted items. Having multiple managers prevents single points of failure in administrative control.

• No Personal Quota Impact
  Shared Drive uses its own quota, so it doesn’t eat into your personal Drive allowance. Thus, you can keep your own My Drive usage lean without worrying about team files.

• Business Continuity & Compliance
  Shared Drives support unified version history and retention settings, and you can apply sharing policies at the drive level. This helps meet university data-protection requirements and ensures secure, consistent access for the whole team.

Next Steps

• Create a Shared Drive or Manage Members in a Shared Drive (External Link)

Environment

• Google Drive