Delete or restore a shared drive and its files for your users

As an administrator, you can delete and restore shared drives in your Google Workspace Admin console. You might delete shared drives if you need to free up storage and know that a shared drive is no longer used, or if a shared drive has content that violates your organization’s data policy. You might restore a shared drive or its content if a user accidentally deleted it.

Delete a shared drive

If you aren't an administrator but have Manager access to a shared drive, go here instead.

To delete a shared drive without emptying it or having access to it, you can use your Admin console.

1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

   Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).

2. In the Admin console, go to Menu  AppsGoogle WorkspaceDrive and Docs.

3. Click Manage shared drives.

4. Find the shared drives you want to delete. If you have many shared drives, you can filter the list by shared drive name or other attributes.
5. To delete a single shared drive:
   1. Point to the shared drive and click MoreDelete.
   2. Check the confirmation box and then click Delete Shared Drive.
6. To delete many shared drives:
   1. Check the box next to each shared drive you want to delete.
   2. At the top, click Delete.
   3. Check the confirmation box and then click Delete Shared Drives.

Deleted shared drives remain visible in the list of shared drives in your Admin console for 30 days after you delete them. They're listed with a status of Deleted.

Restore a deleted shared drive or files deleted from the shared drive

To restore files from a shared drive's trash, go here instead.

If a shared drive was deleted and needs to be restored, you can restore it using the Admin console if it was deleted within the last 25 days. You can also use the Admin console to restore files that were deleted from a shared drive.

Before you begin: If you restore many files or folders at once, it might take some time to restore all the items. If you start a restore while another one is in progress, one of them is canceled.

1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

   Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).

2. In the Admin console, go to Menu  AppsGoogle WorkspaceDrive and Docs.

3. Click Manage shared drives.

4. (Optional) Click Add a filter, and from Status, select Deleted.
5. Point to a shared drive and click the Restore button.
6. Select a date range for the data restore. If you're restoring a shared drive and want to restore all the files that were in the shared drive when it was deleted, you must select the date it was deleted up to the current date.

   Important:

   • If you and the user who deleted the shared drive are in different time zones, we recommend that you consider the time zone difference when you select a date range. For example, you can include an extra day on either side of your date range to make sure you don't miss any data you want to restore.

   • You can only restore items that were removed from the shared drive's trash within the last 25 days, even if you have Google Vault retention policies in place. For details, go to Retain files in Drive with Vault.

7. Click Restore Data.

Related topics

• Recover deleted files and folders for Drive users
• Delete or restore files