Allow users to create shared drives

As an administrator, you can let all or some users in your organization create shared drives. For example, if you're a business you might want to let everyone create shared drives to support team collaboration and prevent data loss when an employee leaves. However, if you're an educational institution, you might only allow instructors to create shared drives, not students.

Note: If shared drive creation is turned off for users in an organizational unit, people inside and outside of your company or school can still add these users to their shared drives.

1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

   Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).

2. In the Admin console, go to Menu  AppsGoogle WorkspaceDrive and Docs.
3. Click Sharing settingsShared drive creation.
4. (Optional) To apply the setting only to some users, at the side, select an organizational unit (often used for departments) or configuration group (advanced). Show me how

   Group settings override organizational units. Learn more

5. Locate the Prevent users in selected-organizational-unit from creating new shared drives box and choose an option:
   • To allow users to create shared drives, uncheck the box.
   • To prevent users from creating shared drives, check the box.
6. (Optional) If you allow users to create shared drives, choose which organizational unit the shared drives are created in by default. You can move shared drives to other organizational units later. This option can help you monitor and manage storage for your organization.
7. (Optional, not supported for Business Starter) Set the default sharing settings for new shared drives, and choose whether shared drive managers can override those settings. Options:

   • Allow members with manager access to override the settings below—When unchecked, managers can’t change these sharing settings for individual shared drives. In most cases, you might want to allow shared drive managers to change the settings so that they aren’t prevented from collaborating with external users or other teams.
   • Allow users outside your organization to access files in shared drives—When unchecked, external users can't have access, even if you allow users to share files outside of your organization. This setting also blocks shared drive managers from adding external users as members. If users aren’t allowed to share any items in Drive outside of your organization, this setting has no effect because it can’t override the sharing setting.
   • Allow people who aren't shared drive members to be added to files—When unchecked, shared drive members can't give non-members view, comment, or edit access to files in shared drives, or sharing these files with a link.
   • Allow content managers to share folders—When unchecked, only managers can share folders.
   • Allow viewers and commenters to download, print, and copy files—When unchecked, shared drive members who have viewer or commenter access can't download, copy, or print files in shared drives.
     Note: Files and folders in shared drives retain this setting when they're moved out of shared drives. In the case of folders, the setting can't be reverted after the file is in My Drive.

   Note: If you change the default settings later, only new shared drives are affected. Existing shared drives keep their current settings. You can update sharing settings for existing shared drives in the admin console.

8. Click Save. Or, you might click Override for an organizational unit.

   To later restore the inherited value, click Inherit (or Unset for a group).

Changes can take up to 24 hours but typically happen more quickly. Learn more

Related topics

• Set up a shared drive
• Set storage limits for shared drives