When you share a document in Drive, you choose what each person can do with it. There is one thing worth knowing first: your colleagues in the company may already be able to see, or even download, the document without being shared with individually. This article explains the sharing levels and the note Drive shows you about it.
The three sharing levels
- Can view: the person can open and read the document.
- Can view & download: the person can read it and also download a copy. This is the level Drive suggests by default.
- Can edit: the person can read and download it, and also upload a new version.
Each level includes the ones before it.
Share a document
- Select the document so its details open.
- Select Share.
- On the Share Document tab, search for a person under Add people and select them.
- For each person, choose a level from the list beside their name. Use Remove to take someone off the list.
- Select Share with followed by the number of people. Drive confirms who the document was shared with and the level each one has.
Check or change who has access
- In the same Share window, open the Permissions tab.
- Under Who has access, see each person and their level.
- Change a person's level from the list beside their name, or select Revoke to take their access away.
The owner of the document is shown as Owner and cannot be changed here. To add someone new, use the Share Document tab. You can change sharing only on documents you are allowed to manage.
The note about colleague access
In some companies, every colleague can already open documents without a personal share. When that is the case, Drive shows a note so that nobody is misled:
- If everyone in the company can already view and download the document, the note says: "Everyone in your company can already view and download this document, so “Can view” does not stop a colleague from downloading it."
This note appears on the Share Document tab when you set someone to Can view, and on the Permissions tab when someone holds Can view. Where Drive knows the company name, the note uses it in place of "your company".
What this means for you
If the note about colleague access appears, it means the company's default access already lets everyone view and download the document. In this case, setting a colleague to Can view will not prevent them from downloading it. If you need a document to stay private, be aware of the company-wide access shown in the note before you rely on Can view.