How to share a Google Drive folder / file

Cloud storage services have managed to become quite popular over the years, for a good reason. They allow you to store various files online, and easily access them from wherever you want, as long as you have access to the Internet. It’s also immensely easy to share such files with other people, without the need to be on one particular device. In this article, we’ll show you how to do just that, share a Google Drive folder / file.

We’ll show you how to do that from both your personal computer (its browser), and an Android smartphone application. The application part applies to iOS as well, as the UI looks very similar. This process is immensely simple, but just to be thorough, we’ll also include some screenshots to guide you along the way.

How to share a Google Drive folder from a browser

The first thing you’ll need to do, of course, is open the drive.google.com website. Make sure you’re logged in, and you can see your files. Once you locate the file you want to share, simply right-click on it.

Once you do that, a floating menu will pop up. There you’ll see a couple of sharing options. The first one is called ‘Share’, while the other is called ‘Get a link’. Both serve a similar purpose, but not the same one.

The ‘Share’ option will allow you to add other Gmail users as collaborators for a specific folder / file.

The second option, ‘Get link’, can provide you with a unique link that you can share with whomever you want. The person on the other end can access the provided file without a problem. You can restrict this further, though, and lock the link to only be accessible to people you’ve added as collaborators. It’s up to you.

How to share a Google Drive folder from an Android app

The procedure is quite similar when you do it from an app as well. Open the app, and locate the folder / file you’d like to share. You can either long-press on it, or tap the three dots next to the name of the folder.

Once you do that, you will see three different sharing options. The ‘Share’ and ‘Manage people and links’ options are the main ones, while there’s also a ‘Copy link’ option, in case you’d like to quickly provide someone with access.

In the ‘Share’ menu, you’ll be able to add people or groups of people. It’s essentially the same option as the one we’ve explained in the previous section.

The ‘Manage people and links’ menu is the main menu, and it gives you various options. You have some link options here, as in you can choose whether people who are not added by you can see the folder / file you’ve shared. That’s basically it.