Goodbye to Your Google Drive

Summer is looming, and the last day for students is either already here or coming soon.  It is also a natural time of transition.  Students and staff may be leaving the district, but they don't want to leave their oodles of Google files and folders behind.  Additionally, educators may be the owners of Google goodness that others will need access to after they are gone.  What to do?

Depending on your needs and situation, one or more of the following tips should help.

1.  Transfer ownership of your Google files and folders.   The process is simple to do (while perhaps tedious one file/folder at a time) and done in the same way you share viewing and editing rights in Google.  Keep in mind that there's no going back once you transfer, and it would be a good idea to give a heads up to your administration and the new owner what you're up to.  Also, for your educator/business account, you cannot transfer ownership to a personal account outside of your domain, or vice versa.  You can only transfer ownership between two domain accounts or between two personal accounts.

2.  Utilize Shared Drives.  I go into more detail about Shared Drives (formerly known as "Team Drives") in a previous blog entry,  but here are some highlights:

• Any files and folders made by a member of a Shared Drive remain in the Shared Drive, even if the  member who created the files/folders leaves.
• Unlike individual folders in a person Drive, Shared Drives are easily accessible by your Google Administrators for your domain.  This can come in handy.  For example, say the creator of the Shared Drive is the only person with "full access," and they leave the district.  Google Admin can (re)assign the "full access" rights to another member of the Shared Drive, along with other management functions.
• You can move your personal files, but not folders, into a Shared Drive.   (Only Google admin for your domain can move folders into a Shared Drive.) For more information and limitations on migrating files into a Shared Drive, read here.

3.  Use Google Takeout to copy files and folders to your personal Drive.  This is an option if you have a G Suite Education/Business account.  (Those with personal Gmail accounts have options to download their data.)  It is a straightforward way to copy, not technically "move," the contents from one Drive to another.  There are three things to keep in mind.  First, while a G Suite for Education or Business account has virtually unlimited storage space, a personal (free) Gmail Drive does not.   (You might want to consider an upgrade, paid annually.)  Secondly, the transfer itself may take several days to complete; don't wait until the last day of your G Suite access to start the process!  Third, when you do Takeout, the default is to also copy ALL the files/folders that have been "Shared with You."  I highly recommend that you take a bit of time to review these before starting your Takeout; any that you don't want copied to you, go to the Share rights for that folder/file and remove yourself from sharing access.   While you can easily see in your Google Drive the size of your own space used, it's these "hidden" shared folders that exist on other people's Drive that can quickly cause a rapid bloat in your Takeout copying process. 

The directions for Takeout are pretty straightforward.  While logged into your G Suite account, go to this site and put in the account that should receive the data.  A verification code will be sent to that account's Gmail.  Once you get the code, enter it and the transfer can begin.

Have a happy, restful, and invigorating summer!

Update 6/20/18:  I discovered you cannot transfer ownership between a personal account and an educator/business Google domain account.  I added this information in #1.

Update 5/6/21: A few years back, "Team Drives" were renamed Shared Drives.  Since I annually pointed back to this entry at the end of every school year, I edited the language above to reflect the name change in order to avoid confusion. I also slightly edited the information about the limits of moving files and folders into a Shared Drive, reflecting the latest Google updates in functionality.

Update 8/20/22: After recently doing Takeout, I personally became very aware of the potential "Shared With Me" folder bloat problem.  I added a disclaimer in #3 above, along with a link for how to pay for a Drive space upgrade.