Google Workspace Lesson 3: Drive — Folders, Sharing and Permissions

📎 This article includes 1 downloadable practice file ↓

⏱ 2 min read

📘 Google Workspace Beginner Course · Lesson 3 of 6

In this article
  1. My Drive vs Shared drives
  2. Sharing levels
  3. More controls
  4. Filter views: don’t disturb others
  5. Find files
  6. Where beginners go wrong
  7. Practice

Drive makes sharing easy, sometimes too easy: a salary sheet set to “Anyone with the link can edit” is one forwarded email away from trouble. This lesson covers organising files and sharing them safely.

My Drive vs Shared drives

  • My Drive: files you own. If you leave the company, they can disappear with your account.
  • Shared drives (Workspace business plans): owned by the team. Use them for anything departmental: Accounts, Sales, HR.

Sharing levels

Role Can
Viewer Read, download, print (download can be turned off)
Commenter Read, comment, suggest
Editor Change content and share further (can be restricted)
Owner / Manager Everything, including delete

Click Share, add people by email, choose the role. Under General access choose Restricted (only added people), your organisation, or Anyone with the link.

⚠️ ‘Anyone with the link’ means anyone who ever sees the link, including forwarded emails and chats. Use it only for things you’d be happy to see public. For customer data, salaries and IDs, use Restricted.

More controls

  • Gear icon in the Share dialog: stop editors from re-sharing; stop viewers from downloading or printing.
  • Set expiry dates on access for outsiders (Workspace).
  • Share a folder rather than many single files; access follows the folder.

Filter views: don’t disturb others

In a shared sheet, a normal filter changes the view for everyone. Data › Create filter view filters only for you, and you can save and link to it.

Find files

The Drive search box understands owner:me, type:spreadsheet, before:2026-04-01, and searches text inside PDFs and images. Star important files; use Shared with me and Recent.

💡 Before someone leaves, use Share > Transfer ownership for their important files (or move them to a shared drive), so nothing vanishes with their account.

Where beginners go wrong

Mistake Fix
Everything set to Anyone with the link Restricted by default
Team files in one person’s My Drive Shared drives
Normal filters on shared sheets Filter views
Copies emailed around Share the one file

Practice

Download the practice file below and upload it to Google Drive (File › Import in Sheets). Upload it to a folder, share it with a colleague as Viewer, and create a filter view for North.

📎 Practice files for this article

  • 📗
    Practice sheet (import into Google Sheets)60 orders plus a Tasks sheet: QUERY, FILTER, UNIQUE, SPLIT, ARRAYFORMULA, GOOGLETRANSLATE, SPARKLINE and more.
    ⬇ XLSX · 8 KB

Free to use for learning. Files with macros (.bas) are plain text — import them with Alt+F11 → File → Import File, and always test on a copy.

Keep reading

Google WorkspaceGoogle Workspace Lesson 4: Google Forms Into SheetsGoogle WorkspaceGoogle Sheets IMPORTRANGE: Pull Data From Another Sheet (and Filter It)Google WorkspaceGoogle Workspace Lesson 2: Google Docs Essentials
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