One of the great things about Google Drive is being able to share and work on documents, spreadsheets, and more while someone else works on it at the same time. But when someone shares a file with you, where can you find it again? Here’s what to do.
If you have the file open in your browser, click “File” and then “Organize.” From there, you can select an existing folder in your Google Drive or create a new folder.
If you are looking at the files or folders in the “Shared with Me” section of Google Drive, you can select one or more of them and then click “Add to my Drive.”
From there you can drag the file or folder into one of your folders, leave it in your main Google Drive folder, or click the 3-dot menu icon and select “move to” to move the file or folder to a logical spot in your organizational scheme.
Either way, you’ll now have the shared file or folder in your own file structure in Google Drive, organized however you prefer.
Bonus Tips:
- If you rename a file or folder, everyone it’s shared with will see the new name.
- If multiple people share a folder that has subfolders, and if you move a file from one sub-folder to another in this shared folder, the file location will be changed for everyone else as well.
- BUT, if you have a shared file or folder, you can put that file or folder into one of your own folders without anyone else knowing. So, for example, if someone shares a project folder with me, I can pull the folder into my own folder called “Projects” or something without affecting anything that the other person can see.
On the right you can see that I have 2 shared folders and one personal folder all grouped under a personal folder called “ITS.” Nobody in the two shared folders needs to know that I’ve grouped the shared folders under my personal parent folder, but the little person icon helps me understand that everything I change inside of those shared folders will change things for the other participants.