Last year, Google introduced a beta that allows shared drive managers and My Drive owners to restrict folders to specific users. Recently they announced the general availability of this feature in shared drives and My Drive, which means that users can limit access to their My Drive folders using the two options outlined below, and by 2026, Google will simplify and align the restricted access principles for My Drive and shared drives.
Current experience for My Drive folders & files (until February 2026):
Users have two options to restrict access to files or folders in their My Drive:
- Update item only: Go to your My Drive > choose a file or folder you want to limit access to for a specific user > Change the role of the specific user (e.g. from Commenter to Viewer) > click on "Update item only"
- Limit folder access: Go to your My Drive > choose the folder you want to limit access > click the overflow menu > share > select share settings in the top right corner > click limit access to “Folder Name”.
For My Drive folders & files after February 2026:
By February 2026, Google will stop allowing restricted access on specific files and folders as outlined in option 1 above (update item only), and limited access will be done consistently via the limited access folder setting as outlined in option 2 above (limit folder access). In the future, Google will identify all the files and folders that are shared less broadly than their containing folder and enable limited access to them. This will not immediately change who has access to those items, but it will make it so that if someone were to share or unshare the item’s parent later, those changes will not apply to the item with limited access. Google will provide an update in early 2026 before this process takes place.
For shared drives:
Only shared drive managers and content managers with sharing access can specify who can open a folder and see what's inside. Everyone else with regular access to the shared drive folder will be able to see that a "sensitive" file or folder exists and can request access to it. This provides shared drive managers with greater flexibility to keep restricted and unrestricted content within a single shared drive, instead of having multiple folders for different access levels.
For users whose access has been limited, you will see the folder name, but the folder will be greyed out.
This feature will be available for free from 18th Feb 2025.
Source: Google
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