Introduction
This article explains the difference between sharing and ownership of a file or folder in Google Workspace’s My Drive and shared drives. Its objective is to help you understand how files and folders are applied to your storage quota within Google Workspace.
The statements about quotas will only pertain once quotas are fully in place in 2024.
Explanation
What is Google My Drive Ownership?
Ownership is a setting called “Owner” on a file or folder within My Drive. It only applies to My Drive. The setting contains the name of an individual with a Google account. There are many uses for this setting. Of interest to this article is the fact that Virginia Tech uses it to determine whose storage quota will be used for the item.
Google My Drive
Google’s My Drive is an individual’s personal workspace. Files and folders within My Drive have this ownership setting, and the storage comes out of an owner’s quota. This table outlines how ownership in your My Drive affects storage quotas.
|
|
Owner Setting |
Storage Quota |
|
Created by you in your My Drive |
You |
Yours |
|
You change the Owner setting to someone else |
Theirs |
|
|
Created by someone else in your My Drive |
Them |
Theirs |
|
They change the Owner setting to you |
Yours |
|
|
Created by you in someone else’s My Drive |
You |
Yours |
|
You change the Owner setting to someone else |
Theirs |
Things you can do with a file or folder in your My Drive
|
|
Owner |
Storage Quota |
|
Share a file with others to view, edit, or comment |
You |
Yours |
|
Change the Owner setting of a file |
Another individual |
Theirs |
|
Change the Owner setting of a folder. This does NOT change the Owner setting of any file or folder nested within. |
Another individual |
Theirs, but any file or folder nested within will still come out of your (or, more specifically, that owner’s) storage quota |
Google Shared Drives
Shared drives are collaborative workspaces. Files and folders do not have the Owner setting. Instead, they are managed by individuals assigned to the Manager role of the shared drive. There are other roles that will allow you to manage shared drives in different ways. For the purposes of this article, we are going to focus on the Manager role as the concept does not change.
Sharing is not the same as ownership. It is a method to grant access to a file or folder and does not change any Owner setting - especially since items in shared drives do not have the ownership setting as mentioned previously for My Drive. Therefore, the storage allocation will not change. The storage allocation for a shared drive always comes out of the department who has claimed responsibility for the shared drive.
Things you can do with a file or folder in a shared drive you manage
- There is no concept of ownership in a shared drive. You simply manage the files and folders within if you have the Manager role. Storage comes out of the department’s quota.
- At the university, "ownership" is reserved for organizational units (OU). OUs "own" a shared drive and is only responsible for management of the storage and storage limits for a shared drive.
- You can share files with others, make them a manager, and even remove your own permissions, but this will not change any individual’s storage quota as shared drives and their content are not owned by individuals.