Share files, folders and drives

Every Google Drive file, folder, and shared drive has associated Permissions resources. Each resource identifies the permission for a specific type (user, group, domain, anyone) and role, such as "commenter" or "reader." For example, a file might have a permission granting a specific user (type=user) the read-only access (role=reader) while another permission grants members of a specific group (type=group) the ability to add comments to the file (role=commenter).

To share a file or folder, the user must have the role of "writer." To share (add a member to) a shared drive , the user must have the role of "organizer."

For a complete list of roles and the operations permitted by each, refer to Roles.

Permission propagation

Permission lists for a folder propagate downward and are inherited by all child files and folders. Whenever permissions or the hierarchy is changed, the propagation occurs recursively through all nested folders. For example, if a file exists in a folder and that folder is then moved within another folder, the permissions on the new folder propagates to the file. If the new folder grants the user of the file a new role, such as "writer," it overrides their old role.

Conversely, if a file inherits the "writer" role from a folder, and is moved to another folder that provides a "reader" role, the file now inherits the "reader" role.

Inherited permissions can't be removed from a file or folder in a shared drive. Instead these permissions must be adjusted on the direct or indirect parent from which they were inherited. Inherited permissions can be removed from items under "My Drive" or "Shared with me."

Conversely, inherited permissions can be overridden on a file or folder on a My Drive. So, if a file inherits the role of "writer" from a My Drive folder, you can set the role of "reader" on the file to lower its permission level.

Capabilities

The permission resource doesn't ultimately determine the current user's ability to perform actions on a file or folder. Instead, a Files resource contains a collection of boolean capabilities fields used to indicate if an action can be performed on a file or folder. These fields are set by the Google Drive API based on the current user's Permissions resource associated with the file or folder.

For example, when Jon logs into your app and tries to share a file, Jon's role is checked in terms of permissions to the file. If his role enables him to share a file, the capabilities related to the file, such as canShare are filled in relative to the role. Then when Jon wants to share the file, your app would check the capabilities to ensure canShare is set to true.

Create a permission

The following two fields are necessary when creating a permission:

type. The type identifies the scope of the permission (user, group, domain, or anyone). A permission with a type of user applies to a specific user whereas a permission with a type of domain applies to everyone in a specific domain.
role. The role field identifies the operations that the type can perform. For example, a permission with a type of user and a role of reader grants a specific user read-only access to the file or folder. Or, a permission with a type of domain and the role of commenter grants everyone in the domain the ability to add comments to a file. For a complete list of roles and the operations permitted by each, refer to Roles.

When you create a permission where type is user or group, you must also provide an emailAddress to tie the specific user or group to the permission.

When you create a permission where type is domain, you must also provide a domain to tie a specific domain to the permission.

To create a permission:

Use the Permissions.create method with the fileId for the associated file or folder.
In the request, identify the type and role.
If the type is user or group, provide an emailAddress. If the type is domain, provide a domain.

Retrieve all permissions for a file, folder, or shared drive

Use the Permissions.list to retrieve all permissions for a file, folder, or shared drive.

Verify user permissions

When your app opens a file, it should check the file's capabilities and render the UI to reflect the permissions of the current user. For example, if the user doesn't have a 'canComment' capability on the file, the ability to comment should be disabled in the UI.

To check the capabilities, call files.get with the fileId and fields parameter set to the capabilities field to verify.

For further information on returning fields using the fields parameter, refer to Return specific fields for a file.

Determine the source of the role for shared drive files and folders

To change the role on a file or folder, you need to know the source of the role. For shared drives, the source of a role can be based on membership to the shared drive, the role on a folder, or the role on a file.

To determine the source of the role for a shared drive or items within that drive, use the permissionDetails field.

This field enumerates all inherited and direct file permissions for the user, group, or domain.

Change permissions

To change permissions on a file or folder, change the assigned role. To change the assigned role:

Call permissions.update with permissionId of the permission to change and the fileId for the associated file, folder, or shared drive.

Note: The permissionId represents the user or group to which the permission is granted, such as somegroup@email.com or someuser@email.com and remains the same for that user or group across all files, folders, and shared drives.
In the request, identify the new role.

Permissions can be granted on individual files or folders in a shared drive even if the user or group is already a member. For example, Jon has the role of commenter as part of membership to a shared drive. However, your app can grant Jon the writer role for a file in a shared drive. In this case, because the new role is more permissive than the role granted using their membership, the new permission becomes the effective role for the file or folder.

Revoke access to a file or folder

To revoke access to an file or folder, call delete to delete the permission.

For items in "My Drive," it is possible to delete an inherited permission. Deleting an inherited permission revokes access to the item and child items, if any.

For items in a shared drive, inherited permissions can not be revoked. Update or revoke the permission on the parent file or folder instead.

The delete operation is also used to delete any permissions directly applied to a shared drive file or folder.

Transfer file ownership to another Google Workspace account in the same organization

Ownership of files existing in "My Drive" can be transferred from one Google Workspace account to another account in the same organization. Files existing in a shared drive are owned by the organization that owns the shared drive. Therefore, ownership transfers are not supported for files and folders in shared drives. Organizers of a shared drive can move items from that shared drive and into their own "My Drive" which transfers the ownership to them.

To transfer ownership of a file in "My Drive," create or update the file's permission with the owner role and set the transferOwnership query parameter to true. When a file is transferred, the previous owner's role is downgraded to writer.

Transfer file ownership from one consumer account to another consumer account

Ownership of files can be transferred between one consumer account to another consumer account. However, drive doesn't transfer ownership of a file between two consumer accounts until the prospective new owner has explicitly consented to the transfer. To transfer file ownership from one consumer account to another consumer account:

The current owner initiates an ownership transfer by creating or updating the prospective new owner's file permission. The permission must include these settings: role=writer, type=user, and pendingOwner=true. If the new owner is creating a new permission for the prospective owner, an email notification is sent to the prospective new owner indicating that they are being asked to assume ownership of the file.
The new owner accepts the ownership transfer request by creating or updating their file permission (from step 1). The permission must include these settings: role=owner and transferOwnership=true. If the new owner is creating a new permission, an email notification is sent to the previous owner indicating that ownership has been transferred.

When a file is transferred, the previous owner's role is downgraded to writer.

Change multiple permissions with batch requests

We strongly recommend using batch requests to modify multiple permissions.

Following is an example of performing a batch permission modification with a client library.

Java

String fileId = "1sTWaJ_j7PkjzaBWtNc3IzovK5hQf21FbOw9yLeeLPNQ";
JsonBatchCallback<Permission> callback = new JsonBatchCallback<Permission>() {
  @Override
  public void onFailure(GoogleJsonError e,
                        HttpHeaders responseHeaders)
      throws IOException {
    // Handle error
    System.err.println(e.getMessage());
  }

  @Override
  public void onSuccess(Permission permission,
                        HttpHeaders responseHeaders)
      throws IOException {
    System.out.println("Permission ID: " + permission.getId());
  }
};
BatchRequest batch = driveService.batch();
Permission userPermission = new Permission()
    .setType("user")
    .setRole("writer")
    .setEmailAddress("user@example.com");
driveService.permissions().create(fileId, userPermission)
    .setFields("id")
    .queue(batch, callback);

Permission domainPermission = new Permission()
    .setType("domain")
    .setRole("reader")
    .setDomain("example.com");
driveService.permissions().create(fileId, domainPermission)
    .setFields("id")
    .queue(batch, callback);

batch.execute();

Python

file_id = '1sTWaJ_j7PkjzaBWtNc3IzovK5hQf21FbOw9yLeeLPNQ'
def callback(request_id, response, exception):
    if exception:
        # Handle error
        print exception
    else:
        print "Permission Id: %s" % response.get('id')

batch = drive_service.new_batch_http_request(callback=callback)
user_permission = {
    'type': 'user',
    'role': 'writer',
    'emailAddress': 'user@example.com'
}
batch.add(drive_service.permissions().create(
        fileId=file_id,
        body=user_permission,
        fields='id',
))
domain_permission = {
    'type': 'domain',
    'role': 'reader',
    'domain': 'example.com'
}
batch.add(drive_service.permissions().create(
        fileId=file_id,
        body=domain_permission,
        fields='id',
))
batch.execute()

Node.js

var fileId = '1sTWaJ_j7PkjzaBWtNc3IzovK5hQf21FbOw9yLeeLPNQ';
var permissions = [
  {
    'type': 'user',
    'role': 'writer',
    'emailAddress': 'user@example.com'
  }, {
    'type': 'domain',
    'role': 'writer',
    'domain': 'example.com'
  }
];
// Using the NPM module 'async'
async.eachSeries(permissions, function (permission, permissionCallback) {
  drive.permissions.create({
    resource: permission,
    fileId: fileId,
    fields: 'id',
  }, function (err, res) {
    if (err) {
      // Handle error...
      console.error(err);
      permissionCallback(err);
    } else {
      console.log('Permission ID: ', res.id)
      permissionCallback();
    }
  });
}, function (err) {
  if (err) {
    // Handle error
    console.error(err);
  } else {
    // All permissions inserted
  }
});