What are Google Shared Drives?

Google Shared Drives are special folders in Google Drive where departments and teams can collaboratively work, store, and share documents. The files stored within a Shared Drive persist with the team instead of an individual. This means that even if members leave, the files stay in the shared drive so your team can continue using the document without interruption. Google Shared Drives can also be referred to as LionMail Shared Drives at Columbia University.

My Drive vs Shared Drive

Google Drive offers two separate locations for storing data, "My Drive" and "Shared Drives". Although they are similar there are some very key differences!

  • My Drive - Should be used for Personal Work Documents and Files
  • Shared Drives - Should be used for Collaborative Team Documents and Files
My Drive vs Shared Drive

Key Features of Shared Drives

Team ownership of Files and Folders (Files and Folders persist after user departure)

  • Instead of individuals owning department documents, the shared drive team owns the document.
  • When users leave the University/Department, files stay with the team

Saves MyDrive Storage Space

  • Google Shared Drive uses space outside of your personal MyDrive storage
  • Standard Google Share Drives are allocated with 200 GB of storage space with additional available for purchase

Flexible and standardized sharing

  • Members of a Shared Drive have standardized permissions and can consistently access files like everyone else
  • Members can share individual files and folders with non-drive members

***Sharing of files/folders in a shared drive is restricted to LionMail users ([email protected]). Files cannot be shared with personal Gmail accounts or other institutions using Google Workspace.

Eligibility for Shared Drives

Google Shared Drives are limited to departments and teams affiliated with Columbia University. One Shared Drive per Department.

Students are not eligible to request a Shared Drive. If a Shared Drive is needed for a University Club, the Faculty sponsor would need to request it on the club's behalf.

Common Uses for Shared Drives

  • Projects: For people involved in the same project.
  • Events: For people working for a defined period on a specific event or deliverable.
  • Templates: For files that people can copy and reuse.
  • Company-wide files: For files, everyone needs access to, such as training files.
  • Sensitive files: For highly sensitive files, where you can add extra security to limit access.

Access Management Through Grouper

Access and permission to Google Shared Drives are managed by Grouper Groups. There are three permission levels configured for Google Shared Drives.

  • M - Manager
  • CM - Content Manager
  • C - Contributors
  • V - Viewer

Managers have full access to the drive and all files on the drive. They are the only ones who can transfer folders from your personal LionMail Drive (My Drive) to the shared drive. This access is not given out by default and is only provided to department heads to transfer existing folders to the Shared Drive.

Content Managers have full access to all files and have the ability to share folders from the shared drive with people outside the department. This is the level of access that most people in your department should have, similar to a shared department file share.

Contributors have edit access to all files. They can add or remove people on specific files. They cannot share folders. They can add new files but cannot delete any files. This is the level of access you would want to provide to temporary employees or external department users.

Viewers have view access to all the files on the shared drive. They cannot edit or comment on the files. They additionally do not have access to download files from the shared drive by default.

Defined Shared Drive Access Chart

** Sharing outside of LionMail is prohibited

Sync Shared Drives to Your Desktop

You can access your shared drives on your computer using Google Drive for desktop.

NOTE: It is strongly recommended that you do not sync shared drives to your desktop. Shared drives are designed to be a cloud solution. If you require constant local access to the files, please use the central file shares.

Pricing

New LionMail Shared Drives include 200GB for free per department. Additional space can be purchased.

Billing charges will begin after 7/1/2025.


Below are the pricing tiers for a different storage quotas for a LionMail Shared Drive.

Google Shared Drive Limits

  • A shared drive can contain a maximum of 500,000 items, including files, folders, and shortcuts.
  • A folder in a shared drive can have up to 100 levels of nested folders.
  • Google Shared Drives do not support the Google Form "File upload" question type. For more info, please reference Google’s forum here: https://support.google.com/docs/thread/48288077/file-upload-in-shared-drive-google-forms?hl=en
  • Files / folders in Google shared drives are owned and managed by Columbia University. Any files / folders transferred to a shared drive must be owned by a user with a [email protected] account. Files owned by personal gmail accounts are not allowed.

Helpful Links