UW-Madison Google Workspace - Preserve My Drive Data Using a Shared drive (Current UW-Madison affiliates only)
Creating shared drives allows teams to share files without having to adjust individual permissions and ensures that files are not lost when a file owner loses eligibility for the UW-Madison Google service.
Audience:
- This document only applies to current and eligible UW-Madison faculty, staff, and students.
- Former affiliates (ex: former employee or former students) are not eligible for Google shared drive access. Access cannot be restored if a personal account (ex: @gmail.com) was used to preserve files using a shared drive. Please use alternative back up methods for personal data.
Reminder: Shared drives with zero members or external members only (non UW-Madison accounts such as a personal @gmail.com account or other email accounts) will be selected for deactivation. Learn more.
- Log into your UW-Madison Google Account.
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Create a shared drive.
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Temporarily add the file owner as a member of the new shared drive.
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Note: Files cannot be added to a shared drive unless the file owner is a member of that shared Drive. Once the files have been transferred, the original file owner can be removed from the shared drive.
- Reminder: Former affiliates should not use this step to add their @gmail.com account or another personal account. Access will not be restored if lost.
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Go back to My Drive and in the search bar, search for owner:name (ex: owner:bucky badger).
- Note: Doing this will only show files that are shared with you. Files that were created but not shared with you will not appear.
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Drag the files or folders that you would like to transfer from My Drive to the new shared drive, which can be found in the menu on the left-hand side.
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Remove the original file owner's membership from the shared drive.