Share a final document

Decide who you want to share the file with and find co-workers using Cloud Search.

If you’re sharing with a few specific people, you can add it to your own Drive and share it from there.

If your organization uses shared drives, you can add it to your shared drive and share it with everyone who has access to the shared drive.

To share the document more widely with your entire organization or to share it publicly, add it to Google Sites.

Add the document to Drive:

On your computer, you can upload from drive.google.com or your desktop. You can upload files into private or shared folders.

1. On your computer, go to drive.google.com.
2. At the top left, click New   File Upload or Folder Upload.
3. Choose the file or folder you want to upload.

 

Add the document to a shared drive:

Requires at least Contributor access

Any files you add are owned by the team. If you leave the shared drive, your files remain.

1. On the left, click a shared drive.
2. Drag an existing file (that you own*) from your computer or from My Drive into a shared drive. Or, at the top of Drive, click Newand choose an option:
   • To create a file, select the file type you want to create, such as Google Docs.
   • To upload a file, click File upload. Navigate to the file and open it.
3. Double-click a file to open and edit it.

*If you don't own the file but have Editor access in Drive, you can move it to a shared drive if your administrator has allowed this option.

Note: To store and access files on your desktop, use Google Drive for desktop. For details, see What can you do with Drive for desktop.

 

Add the document to Sites:

1. Go to Google Sites and open the site and page where you want to add the file.
2. Click Insert Docs, Slides, or Sheets to choose a file on your Drive.

Embed any file from Drive or the contents of a folder stored in Drive. If you make changes to your files in Drive, the same changes automatically show in Sites.

Share a file or folder with specific people:

Share a link to a file or folder:

1. Open a file in Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, or Google Slides.
2. Click Share  find the user you'd like to give temporary permissions to.
   • If you haven't shared the file with that person yet, add the user's email and click Send or Share. At the top right of the document, click Share again.
3. Next to the person's name, click the Down arrow   Add expiration.
4. Next to "Access expires," click a date to set as the expiration date. Choose a date within one year of the current date.
5. Click Save.

If you’re sharing a file, the owner and anyone with editor access can change the permissions and share the file. To prevent others from sharing your file:

1. Open the file in Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, or Google Slides.
2. Click Share or Share .
3. At the top, click Settings .
4. Uncheck Editors can change permissions and share.

Important: If you prevent sharing of a folder, it only applies to the folder. To prevent sharing the files inside, you have to change this setting for the files inside.

Important: You can limit how people share, print, download, and copy within Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides, but you can't stop how others share the file content in other ways.

You can rename a document to mark it as final and then change the permissions on it to view-only. People can view the content but won’t be able to make changes.

Rename your document in Docs, Sheets, or Slides to mark it final:

Change your document to view-only:

If you shared the file with specific people or a group:

1. In Google Drive, right-click the file and select Share .
2. To the right of the person or group you want to change, click the Down arrow Viewer.
3. Click Save.

If you shared the file with your organization:

1. In Drive, right-click the file and select Share .
2. Under Get link, at the right, click the Down arrow Viewer.
3. Click Done.

From Drive:

Stop sharing a file or folder you own:

1. Find the file or folder in Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, or Google Slides.
2. Open or select the file or folder.
3. Click Share or Share .
4. Find the person you want to stop sharing with.
5. To the right of their name, click the Down arrow   Remove access.
6. Click Save.

Remove a link to a file or folder you own:

1. Find the file or folder in Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, or Google Slides.
2. Open or select the file or folder.
3. Click Share  or Share   Copy link .
4. Under “General access”,  click the Down arrow .
5. Select Restricted.
6. Click Done.

From a shared drive:

Unshare files with your organization:

1. Find the file or folder in Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, or Google Slides.
2. Open or select the file or folder.
3. Click Share  or Share   Copy link .
4. Under “General access”,  click the Down arrow .
5. Select Restricted.
6. Click Done.

Unshare files with individuals:

1. Find the file or folder in Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, or Google Slides.
2. Open or select the file or folder.
3. Click Share or Share .
4. Find the person you want to stop sharing with.
5. To the right of their name, click the Down arrow   Remove access.
6. Click Save.

Note: Group settings can override individual settings. So, if you try to unshare a file with a person who belongs to an organization or group with access to the file, this person can still access the file.

If people don’t have access to your document, they’ll see a “You need permission” message. They can click Request access, and you’ll get an email asking for your approval. If you want to share the document with that person, follow the instructions in Share the document.

In Google Drive, you can see and manage access requests in Activity.

1. In Docs, Sheets, or Slides, open the file.

   Note: You will need to have edit access for the file to see the Activity dashboard data.

2. Click ToolsActivity dashboard.
3. You can see information about the activity on your file, including:
   • Shared with tab: Shows people you’ve shared the file with. You can also email collaborators.
   • All viewers (organization) tab: Shows people in your organization who have viewed the file.
   • Viewer trend tab: Shows a chart of viewers over time.
4. (Optional) If you don’t want your view history to appear in Activity dashboard, click Privacy Settings and choose an option:
   • Turn off view history for all files: Under Account setting, turn off Show my view history for all Docs, Sheets and Slides files.
   • Turn off view history for one file: Under Document setting, turn off Show my view history for this document.
5. Click Save.