How to Move Shared with Me to My Drive Inside Google Drive
To assist in collaboration, Google Drive has a “Share with me” category. However, in light of organizational changes, a user query like “How to move Shared with me to my drive” is not an uncommon thing to ask. Moreover, users will agree that any professional collaborative environment cannot function without a dedicated storage mechanism.
That’s why, to address their needs, companies often rely on services like the ones offered by Google Drive. However, as organizations are dynamic environments, so objects stored inside drives often need to be shifted.
This change in ownership of data can be tricky to do, especially if there are a large number of such changes. Therefore, in order to make the job simpler, we have prepared this writeup. Here, users get a complete guide on transferring files with a shared with me status to their default location on my drive. Before we begin with all the nuances on the subject, it is important to identify the reasoning behind this change.
Why Users Ask “How to Move Shared with Me to My Drive”
There are multiple possibilities for arriving at this situation. Some of the major ones are discussed below:
- A user left the organization so the documents shared with them are to be given to a different employee
- A project ended, and documents that were shared with a set of users need to be moved to the admin’s Google Drive for archival purposes.
- New regulatory guidelines were rolled out requiring all shared with me tagged files to be transferred back to personal drives.
- You need to prepare for a Google Drive to One Drive migration and thus want to bring all files to their original owners.
Your situation could match any one of the above or be something entirely different. However, the steps to get out of it are the same regardless. Let’s look at what those steps are.
Manual Methods to Transfer “Shared with Me” Files to My Drive
- Log into the Google Drive Account
- Go to “Shared with me” Section
- Select a file
- Click on the three Dots At the rightmost part of the file.
- From the dialog box that opens, click on the “Make a copy” option.
- This generates a new file with the same name on your personal drive.
Otherwise, you can also use the keyboard shortcut. Let’s see how
- Select a file or set of files on your “Shared with me” tab
- Press the Ctrl + C key simultaneously on your keyboard.
- This creates a temporary copy of the file contents on your clipboard.
- Open any other sub-folder and press Ctrl + V to replicate the file contents.
One advantage of this method over the previous one is that users can control the location of the replica. This is not possible with the last method, as by default, Google Drive is programmed to make a copy in the My Drive main folder.
The major limitation of both of the above methods is that they only move the content to a single account. For inter-account file transfers, users can do the following instead:
- Share file or link directly
In case you lack permission to do so, you can either
- Create a copy (like explained previously) and share it afterward
Or - Download the file and Upload it on the Target Accounts Google Drive
This method is also not foolproof, as users can only upload if they have the credentials of the target account. Additionally, the original file continues to exist at the original location so none of these is a solution that most users want.
Moreover, apart from the obvious, there are many more errors that users can encounter if users can rely solely on the manual method. Let me highlight some of the problems you might face.
Problems Transferring Files from Shared with me to My Drive Manually
Unassigned Changes: This might not sound like a huge problem but in strict industrial regulations moving documents without admin approval is a big no-no. Most users often lack the permissions to make such permanent changes in file settings. However, if due to any oversight, they can change the file location they must first make sure that admins or other higher-level executives are aware.
Missing Permissions: Any permissions attached to the document are lost. Users might wonder why this is the case. To put it simply this method does not move the original content but rather creates a new file from scratch. As a result, only the data gets copied but metadata information which includes permissions is not present.
Time-Consuming: This method is highly situational and only suitable for one-off file shifting. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that trying to download and upload thousands of documents for hundreds of users one at a time is going to take a while. Not to mention recreating the folder structure which is a project in itself.
Error Prone: This repetitive and mundane task directly correlates to user-generated errors being introduced in the result. These include
- Files at the wrong location
- File data getting corrupt
To name a few. This is another reason to avoid the manual answer of how to move shared with me to my drive.
Infrastructure Dependency: If errors themselves weren’t enough then users must also know that the manual method is greatly affected by the hardware they have. As we know the drive is a cloud-based service. Therefore, to get the data from there users must have proper bandwidth. Moreover, even if they manage to secure a network connection the local computer that they are using must have enough storage space to hold the downloaded data.
Automated Means of How to Move Shared with me to My Drive
Looking at the many drawbacks of the manual methods we are pleased to inform you that users need not bother with any of them. This is because they can go for the SysTools Google Drive Migration tool instead. It comes with the latest and greatest UI for simplifying all the Google Drive-related migrations.
Not only this but the robust algorithms present in the tool ensure that the entire process goes as smoothly as possible. Install the demo version and ask for the on-demand feature of how to move Share folders with me to My Drive. Moreover, any and all of your queries are going to be answered 24/7 by the support team. As this is an important precursor in our plan to move stuff from one Google Drive to another we cannot make any mistakes.
Next up we provide a complete breakdown of the parameters that explain why the tool is better than the manual method.
Why Choose the Tool Over Traditional Methods
The tool not only repositions files shared Under the “Shared with me” category as required but also assists in the following:
- Transfer Google Drive content across accounts and domains.
- Initiate G Drive migration between accounts with the help of admin account details.
- Utilize admin credentials for seamless transition without user passwords.
- Enable transfer of permissions for G-Drive files and directories.
- Move various Google Drive items such as documents, images, and videos.
- Capability to move the G-Drive trash folder preserving all deleted items.
- Use Delta Migration to transfer recently added source files in G-Drive.
- Set a specific Date Range for Google Drive migrations.
- Duplicate the entire Google Drive directory structure between destinations.
- Pause and Resume Google Drive transfers at your convenience.
- Receive summary & detail Reports after a successful Google Drive transfer.
- High Compatibility with a wide array of current Windows Operating Systems.
Conclusion
In our answer to the query “how to move shared with me to my drive” we provided users with the most useful suggestions. From reasons to manual methods and their automated alternative, everything has been discussed in crystal clear detail.
Anyone who is in the need to shift the “Shared with me” files back to their personal Google Drive can refer to the points here. Above all, we once again want to state that among all the methods discussed the tool is by far the best way to achieve the task.
