Lesson 2: My Drive or Shared Drive: Where a File Belongs

Why This Lesson Matters

In Level 1 you found out which plan you have and what your IT team may have switched off. Now comes the first real decision about storage: where does each file belong? Google Drive gives work accounts two places to keep files:

• My Drive: your personal area. Files you create here are owned by you.
• Shared drives: team areas. Files here are owned by the organisation, not by any one person.

This difference matters most when people leave. If you choose the wrong place, a whole team can lose its files.

Plan and feature details below were checked against Google's pages on 2 November 2026. Google changes them often.

Step 1: Understand Ownership

Think of a desk drawer and a team filing cabinet.

• My Drive is your desk drawer. You can let colleagues look inside (sharing), but the drawer and what's in it belong to you. You control who sees each file.
• A shared drive is the team cabinet. It belongs to the organisation. People are given an access level to the whole cabinet, and the files stay put when any one person leaves.

One detail people often miss: if you move a file you created into a shared drive, you are still the creator, but you are no longer the owner. Ownership passes to the shared drive.

Step 2: Know What Happens When Someone Leaves

Here is what happens when a Google Workspace admin deletes a departing user's account:

1. My Drive files owned by that user are deleted, unless the admin transfers them to another user first. Transferring is optional, so an admin who skips it, or forgets, loses the files.
2. Google keeps deleted data for about 20 days, and only an admin restoring the whole user can get it back. After that it cannot be recovered.
3. Shared drive files are not deleted. They belong to the shared drive, so the team keeps them.
4. One gap to watch: if the person leaving was the shared drive's only Manager, someone else should be made a Manager before they go.

Example: Priya keeps the client contract templates in her My Drive and shares them with five colleagues. She leaves, and the admin deletes her account without a transfer. The templates disappear for everyone. If they had been in a "Contracts" shared drive, nothing would have changed.

Step 3: Check Whether Your Plan Includes Shared Drives

Whether you have shared drives depends on your plan:

• Personal (consumer) Google accounts: you cannot create shared drives. Everything is in My Drive.
• Google Workspace Business Starter: shared drives have been included since 2024, but with fewer admin and security controls than higher plans.
• Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise, Education and Essentials plans: shared drives are included.
• Corporate accounts: even on a plan that includes them, your admin can stop you creating shared drives. You may still be a member of drives that others created.

Do this now (web, drive.google.com):

1. Sign in with your work account.
2. Look at the left sidebar for Shared drives.
3. If you see it, click it to list the shared drives you belong to.
4. If you don't see it, you are probably on a personal account or a plan without shared drives, or your admin has turned the feature off. Ask your admin before going further.

Mobile and desktop: the Drive mobile app lists shared drives in its file browsing area. Menu names change between app versions, so look for Shared drives. If you use Drive for desktop, shared drives show up as their own folder. That app is covered in Level 5.

Step 4: Find Your Access Level in Each Shared Drive

Shared drives have five access levels:

Do this now (web):

1. Open Shared drives in the left sidebar.
2. Right-click a shared drive.
3. Choose Manage members. If you are not a Manager it may say View members.
4. Find your name and write down your access level.
5. Do this for each shared drive you belong to.

If you can't do something you expected to (for example, move a folder), your access level is the usual reason.

Step 5: A Note on Gemini

On plans where Gemini is available, and if your admin hasn't restricted it, Gemini in Drive has the same access you have. It can draw only on files you are allowed to open. So when a key file sits in someone's My Drive and they haven't shared it with you, Gemini can't find it for you either. Keeping team files in a shared drive means everyone on the team, and their Gemini, sees the same set of files. Searching with Gemini is covered in Level 4.

Step 6: Decide Where Each File Belongs

Use this checklist for each file:

• Shared drive if:
  • the team needs it after you leave (contracts, client work, policies, templates)
  • several people edit or manage it over time
  • it belongs to a project, client or department rather than to you
• My Drive if:
  • it is personal working material (drafts, notes, your CV, training certificates)
  • only you need it, and losing it when you leave would harm no one
  • it is a short-term draft you'll move into a shared drive once it's ready

A quick test: "If I left tomorrow, would anyone need this?" If yes, it goes in a shared drive.

Your Task: Sort Ten of Your Own Files

1. Open My Drive and pick ten files you use often.
2. Make a two-column list: File and Belongs in.
3. Write My Drive or Shared drive next to each one.
4. Add a one-line ownership reason, for example: "Shared drive: the client team needs this after I leave."
5. Don't move anything yet. Folder design comes in Level 3. Just keep your list.

Key Takeaways

• Files in My Drive belong to one person. Files in a shared drive belong to the organisation.
• When an account is deleted, its My Drive files are deleted unless an admin transfers them. Shared drive files stay.
• Moving a file into a shared drive makes you its creator but no longer its owner.
• Shared drives need a Workspace plan (Business Starter has fewer controls), and admins can turn off creating them.
• There are five access levels: Manager, Content manager, Contributor, Commenter and Viewer. Check yours with Manage members or View members.
• Gemini sees only what you can see.
• Ask: "If I left tomorrow, would anyone need this?"