Two kinds of drive, two different owners
Almost every "where did my files go?" ticket comes down to one question: who owns the file? Google Drive gives you two places to keep files, and they answer that question differently.
- My Drive belongs to one person. Every file in it has one owner, a named user account. Others can be editors, commenters or viewers, but the owner has the final say: they can delete the file, change its sharing, or hand ownership to someone else.
- A shared drive belongs to the organisation. No person owns the files in it. People become members with an access level, and that access level decides what they can do with every file in the drive.
Think of a desk drawer and a team filing cabinet. If someone empties their desk drawer on their last day, the papers go with them. The filing cabinet stays in the office however many people leave.
The leaver test: what happens when the owner goes
This is where the difference costs organisations real data. Google's admin documentation (checked November 2026) says that when you delete a user, the Drive files they own can be transferred to another user during deletion. Files in shared drives are not part of that transfer, because the organisation already owns them. If nobody transfers the data, the deleted user's files are kept for about 20 days, and only restoring the account brings them back.
TICKET 4412: "Priya left on Friday, the Q3 forecast sheet has vanished"
Check 1: Where did the file live?
-> In Priya's My Drive, shared with the finance team as Editors
-> Owner = priya@example.co.uk # one person owned it
Check 2: What happened to Priya's account?
-> Deleted, with no data transfer chosen
-> Her owned files went with the account # editors lost access too
Result: recoverable only by restoring the user within the recovery window.
Lesson: this sheet belonged in a shared drive.
Same sheet in the "Finance" shared drive:
-> Owner = the organisation
-> Priya's membership ends; the file stays exactly where it is
Gotcha: being an editor on a colleague's My Drive file gives you no protection. If the owner's account goes, so does your access. Users are often surprised by this, so say it plainly.
Shared drive access levels, from least to most
These are the five levels, as Google's Drive Help describes them today (checked November 2026):
Level Can do Cannot do
--------------- -------------------------------------------- ------------------------------
Viewer View all files Comment, edit, upload
Commenter Comment on all files Edit, upload
Contributor Edit all files, upload new files MOVE or DELETE files;
edit in Drive for desktop
Content manager Upload, edit, move, delete all files Manage members
(by default)
Manager Everything above + manage members and -
drive settings
The level to watch is Contributor. It sounds like "can do normal work", and on the web it almost is: the person can edit and upload. But:
- They can't move or delete files. The "Move" and "Remove" options are greyed out. Users report this as "Drive is broken".
- Drive for desktop treats them as read-only. Google's guidance is that editing shared drive files locally, through Drive for desktop or the ChromeOS Files app, needs Content manager or Manager. A Contributor who opens a Word file from the shared drive's folder on their G: drive in File Explorer can't save changes back to it.
TICKET 4419: "I can edit the budget in Chrome but Excel says read-only
when I open it from G:\Shared drives\Finance"
Read-only check: Shared drive > Manage members > find the user
-> Access: Contributor # explains both symptoms
Fix (by a Manager of the drive): raise to Content manager, if the
team agrees they should also be able to move and delete files
Confirm: user reopens the file from G: and saves a test change
Trade-off: you can't give someone desktop editing without also giving them move and delete. That is a business decision for the drive's Manager, so don't make it quietly on a ticket.
Moving files between the two
Moving a file into a shared drive changes who owns it, which is why moves catch people out. From Google's current help page (checked November 2026):
- By default you can only move files and folders you own. An admin setting can also let editors move files.
- To move a folder into a shared drive, you must be a Manager of that shared drive.
- After the move, only shared drive members and people the file is shared with directly can open it. Permissions inherited from the old folder aren't copied.
- If the original owner is in your organisation but isn't a member of the shared drive, they lose ownership but can still access the file.
- In Drive for desktop you can't move a folder from My Drive to a shared drive. Use the web.
Trashed shared drive files sit in that shared drive's trash, not in the trash of the person who deleted them. They are removed automatically after 30 days.
Which drive should the team use?
Scenario Use Why
----------------------------------------------- ------------- ------------------------------
Draft CV, personal notes, work in progress My Drive One person's working files
Client contracts the whole team needs for years Shared drive Must outlive any one person
Project folder, staff turnover expected Shared drive Leavers don't take files
Sharing one doc with one colleague for review My Drive Simple; owner shares directly
Team that edits Office files via Drive for Shared drive, Contributor can't save
desktop Content mgr+ changes from the desktop
A one-line explanation for the user: "Files in My Drive belong to you and leave when you do. Files in a shared drive belong to the company, so the team keeps them."
Keep in mind that shared drives have limits too. Google currently documents a maximum of 500,000 items per shared drive, counting items in trash, and 600 members, of which up to 100 can be groups (checked November 2026). Very large teams may need more than one drive.
Key takeaways
- My Drive file = one named owner. Shared drive file = owned by the organisation.
- When a user is deleted, only the files they own need transferring. Shared drive files are unaffected.
- Five levels: Viewer, Commenter, Contributor, Content manager, Manager.
- Contributor can edit and upload on the web, but can't move or delete files and can't edit through Drive for desktop. That needs Content manager or higher.
- Moving a folder into a shared drive needs Manager. Inherited folder permissions aren't carried across.
- Anything a team needs to keep after people leave belongs in a shared drive.