How to share Google Drive files with external users without giving full access

Neatly offers a much more convenient alternative to granting 3rd party users access to your Google Drive. It does so by creating a shared workspace that does not require any special user permissions.

Today I’m going to show you how to share your Google Drive with external users without having to give them full access to your drive.

Sharing your Google Drive files with external contractors and freelancers can be confusing. After all, you want them to have access to many of your files, but not all of them. If you’re using shared drives, it can be even more frustrating.

In this straightforward guide, I’ll show you exactly how to provide limited access to your shared files while maintaining a comfortable workspace for you and your external third parties.

Can I share Google Drive with external users?

Of course you can share files with external collaborators such as freelancers and non-Google users. The problem is that it’s not always convenient to do so.

One way is by sharing each file with your external users one by one using the share button at the top right of the screen for each file.

You can also share files and folders in shared drives with external users.

The downside of this is that you’ll be giving external users access to your shared drives, which most people don’t want to do.

The easier to way using Neatly

Neatly is a digital asset manager (DAM) for Google Drive which makes it easy to share, organize and collaborate files saved in Google Drive and external links.

You can manage projects with freelancers, contractors and partners or for more permanent sharing, you can create categories in Neatly.

An example of a shared workspace to collaborate on Google Drive files with 3rd party users

When working with 3rd parties, Neatly allows you to create a shared workspace without giving 3rd party users access to your Google Drive.

The advantages of using Neatly for sharing with external:

File permissions that mirror Google’s - editor, viewer, admin.
Create multiple projects with the same files in them without actually duplicating any files.
Multiple options to organize files in a more user friendly way than standard folders.
Easy removal of user access.
Aggregation of both Google files and links from around the web in one place.

You can learn more about using Neatly as a DAM here.

Can I share Google Drive with non Google users?

Another way is to turn on visitor sharing. Visitor sharing allows your company users to invite external users without a Google account to access files and folders. Invited users will need to verify their identity every 7 days for security.

Sharing files with Non-Google users using Neatly

You can only login to Neatly with a Google account, but you can share files by email or unique link with anyone, regardless of if they have a Google account or not.

You can access the sharing menu in the Neatly UI:

1. Click on the share button

2. Copy the unique sharing link or enter the recipient’s email address

The recipient can either open the copied link or they’ll receive an email with a link to open the file.

Can a third party upload to Google Drive and will other people have access to my Google Drive if I share files?

Yes, as long as you’ve turned on visitor sharing or have given the 3rd party user access to your shared drive.

The easier to way using Neatly

There’s no need to give anyone access to your Google Drive or shared drives when using Neatly.

You can invite a 3rd party user to your Neatly account for private sharing and collaboration. Simply give the user editor permission to the specific category or project with Neatly. The external user will only see that category or project shared with them and nothing else.

The external user will then have the option to upload any files or folders to the shared category which will be automatically shared with any other users with access to the category.

Benefits of using Neatly in this case:

Create organized, private workspaces to collaborate with third party users.
Control access to your files and easily remove access once a project is completed.
No third party access to your Google Drive is needed.

Conclusion

As you can see, Neatly offers a much more convenient alternative to granting 3rd party users access to your Google Drive. It does so by creating a shared workspace that does not require any special user permissions.

You can try Neatly for free here.