Yes, any Google account can be a member of a Shared Drive. A Google account includes consumer @gmail.com Google accounts and Google Workspace accounts from other organizations.
UW Google Shared Drives offer the best collaboration space for UW Google. In a Shared Drive, files are "owned" by the Shared Drive and the members of the Shared Drive, instead of an individual. Storing files in a Shared Drive helps to ensure important team files are not deleted when an individual departs from the UW as their UW Google account is deleted upon separation.
To view the Shared Drives you have access to, log in to Google Drive and select the "Shared drives" icon under the "My Drive" icon.
It is possible to hide a Shared Drive from view. To view the Shared Drives you have hidden, after selecting "Shared drives", select "Hidden shared drives" in the top right corner of the webpage:
Shared Drives are available to UW employees who take active responsibility for managing data, access, and providing funding information when required. Shared Drives up to 100 GB of storage are subsidized by UW-IT. Shared Drives larger than the subsidized 100 GB quota are available through our recharge service. Click the link below to learn more and request a new Shared Drive, if you are a UW employee. Request a new Shared Drive
Shared Drive members who have the Manager role can change the roles of other Shared Drive members. Shared Drives have five roles with decreasing permissions:
Click here to learn how to move folders in Google Drive and Shared Drives
Select the Shared Drive in the Google Drive web interface. At the top of the screen, you should see the Shared Drive name with a down arrow next to it (just under the search box). Click on the Shared Drive name and choose "Shared drive settings". Select the options as desired:
Shared Drives are 1) restricted and then 2) deleted after 30 days, beginning when there is no current UW employee's UW Google account (@uw.edu email address) in the Manager role.
A Shared Drive without the UW Google account (@uw.edu email address) of a current UW employee (including unpaid academic appointments and generally anything else found in Workday) in the Manager role will be restricted to zero storage space and the name of the Shared Drive prepended with: "(PENDING_DELETE_on_X-XX-XXXX)--". The restricted Shared Drive will appear at the top of the list of Shared Drives to make them easy to identify.
Beginning 8/1/23, new restricted Shared Drives will remain restricted for 30 days and then will be deleted.
A Shared Drive can be left without a Manager when the creator of a Shared Drive departs the UW and their UW Google account is subsequently deleted, and there are no other Managers on the Shared Drive. This results in an "unmanaged" Shared Drive, i.e. there is no UW Google account with the ability to manage the Google accounts with access to the Shared Drive or the settings of the Shared Drive. A Shared Drive without a currently employed UW Employee in the Manager role will be deleted. However, we can promote a Content Manager to Manager under specific circumstances.
Please note that:
Additional promotion option:
If all these conditions are met, a UW employee who is a Content Manager can email help@uw.edu with a request to be promoted to Manager. In your email to help@uw.edu please include:
Files deleted from a Shared Drive are stored in the Shared Drive trash for 30 days, then they are permanently deleted with no recovery available. To access the Shared Drive's trash, click the Shared Drive then click Trash. Please be aware that this does not apply to the admin deletion of an entire Shared Drive during the Shared Drive Deletion Policy. In this case, the Shared Drive cannot be restored.
You can find and open your files from a Shared Drive on your computer with Google Drive for desktop. You can:
Click here to download Google Drive for Desktop
Click here to read about Shared Drive limits
In response to the changes implemented by Google, UW Google Shared Drives will become a fee-based service beginning in July 2024. A helpful way to understand these changes is to know that UW Shared Drive for G Suite was a feature that offered unlimited storage and will be shut down in August 2023. The new feature set, UW Shared Drive for Google Workspace, is the fee-based replacement that includes storage tiers and quotas. For more information on how to obtain a Shared Drive, please see the Google Shared Drive Service Offering page.
Yes, any Google account can be a member of a Shared Drive. A Google account includes consumer @gmail.com Google accounts and Google Workspace accounts from other organizations.
No, it does not; your UW Google account's individual quota is separate from the quotas of any Shared Drives you have access to.
Unfortunately, UW-IT cannot move files to a Shared Drive on your behalf, even if these files belong to you.
The current tooling from Google that provides "bulk file move" services does not easily identify the owner(s) of content considered for processing, nor does it easily identify private, unshared files in folders that could also be moved and subsequently revealed. This deficiency in tooling creates a risk scenario in which UW-IT could potentially move files owned by others who have not given their consent.
We must comply with UW privacy and data stewardship policies and practices, and we do not change ownership or copy content unless the process is undertaken via an appropriate HR process, legal request process, or FOIA request process. UW-IT also cannot arbitrate or otherwise determine intellectual property ownership different from the technical owner value in UW Google.
Additionally, before UW-IT could begin to offer a service to move files to a Shared Drive on behalf of users, proper procedures would first need to be established and vetted with the UW Privacy Office, UW Division of the Attorney General's Office, Human Resources, and Registrar (the latter, for when data owned by students is involved). Finally, migrations of any sort are "high-touch support" as a rule and UW-IT expects significant staffing would be needed. UW-IT is evaluating adding such services, after the proper procedures are established and vetted as detailed above, and we would expect them to be recharge services with rates that would need to be determined once staffing is identified.
There is no expected availability date for this service. As an alternative, explore moving Google Drive folders to a Shared Drive.
If you need further assistance, please contact UW-IT at help@uw.edu or 206-221-5000.