Sharing - Google Docs & Google Drive

Need to know how to share a Google Doc, file or folder in Google Drive? See how Google Drive provides a secure, and easy-to-control share system to manage who can view, edit or own documents or files in Google Drive.

Google Drive & Docs Sharing Video Demo

00:25 - Visibility and access levels

01:52 - Invite specific people

04:20 - Alter and remove existing permissions

05:14 - Share a folder

06:32 - Moving alters sharing

08:13 - Share with groups

11:45 - Loosest permission wins

10:04 - Transfer Ownership

11:07 - Publish to the web

Instructions

Google provides simple, robust, and intuitive tools to share items from Google Drive. You can set your documents', files' and folders' visibility, share your documents with specific people, and publish read-only documents to the public.

Link sharing

Link sharing provides blanket sharing for your document, file or folder. Google Drive sets the visibility of any new document, file or folder created in to Private (unless you use Google Apps and your domain admin sets the default differently), but you can choose from up to five visibility options.

Private - only available to you - No-one else can access unless you specifically invite them (this changes the visibility to Shared with specific people)
People at [Business] with the link - Anyone in your domain with the url to your document can access (requires Google Apps)
People at [Business] - Anyone in your domain can search for and access (requires Google Apps)
Anyone with the link - Anyone who has the url can access
Public on the web - Anyone can search for and access

As well as choosing who can access, you can control the Access they get, either view only, comment, or edit.

View - You can view and make requests to share the document, file or folder with others;
Comment - You can view and make comments on the document, file or folder and make requests to share the document with others;
Edit - You can make changes to the document, file or folder, change visibility options and invite others to view, comment or edit.

To change the visibility of a document, file or folder use the blue Share button, and then the Change… link. Choose your new visibility then use the green Save button, and then the blue Done.

Invite people

Google Drive allows you to invite specific people to access your documents, files and folders. You can invite people to view, comment, or edit.

Use the Share button, then in the Invite people box enter the email addresses of those you want to invite (if your Google Contacts contains the people you want to invite their names will appear as a suggestions) . You can also invite groups using the group's email address.
Choose whether to Notify people by email use the blue Send button (or OK button if you chose not to send the notification) to invite them. Use the green Done.

Note, for people to access your document file or folder, they need a Google Account. If you invite people who do not own a Google Account they will need to create one to access.

Remove access

You can change or remove access to your document for specific people.

Use the Share button and then use the X next to the people you want to remove access for;
Use the green Save changes button to save your changes, then the blue Done button.

Change Owner

You can also transfer ownership to another person.

Note: If you use Google Apps you cannot transfer ownership to someone outside of your domain and if you use a personal Google Account or Gmail address you cannot transfer ownership to a Google Apps user.

Use the Share button and use the permissions drop-down box next to the person you want to make owner.
Change the current permission level, e.g. can edit, to is owner
Note: Google Drive only allows one owner, so if you transfer ownership to someone else and subsequently need ownership back then the new owner needs to grant it to you.
Use the green Save changes button to save your changes, then the blue Done button.

Publish to the web

You can publish to the web Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides and Google Drawings. This makes a read-only version available to the public. If you publish a Google Doc it lacks any Google Docs menus or toolbar, presenting itself as a simple web page, and updates from the original Google Doc every 5 minutes.