Before you start
When a colleague shares a document with you in Drive, it shows up in your Shared Drive. If you no longer need it, you can remove it from your own Drive. This does not delete the document for anyone else. The owner and the other people it is shared with still have it.
Be aware that once you remove it, you can no longer open the document unless someone shares it with you again.
Find the shared document
- Open Shared Drive from the Drive menu. It shows what other people and workspaces shared with you.
- In Recently shared, select Browse all to see every document shared with you. You can also select the Shared with you card.
- Select the document. A details panel opens on the right.
Remove it from your Drive
In the details panel, look for the box that shows Shared by (or Owner, if Drive does not know who shared it) and Your access, which tells you what you are allowed to do with the document.
- Select Remove from my Drive.
- Drive asks you to confirm: it tells you that you will no longer be able to open the document unless it is shared with you again. Confirm to continue.
- The button changes to "Removing…" for a moment. The panel then closes and the document disappears from your list.
When you do not see the button
Some documents are not shared with you personally, so there is nothing for you to remove:
- If you see the document through your company workspace, Drive says "You see this through your company workspace. Ask the owner or a company admin to change your access."
- In other cases, Drive says "Ask the owner to remove your access if you no longer need it."
If something goes wrong
If Drive cannot remove the document, an error is shown at the top of the panel. A common message is "Could not remove the document from your Drive." Try again, and if it keeps happening, ask the owner to remove your access.