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by techslave 2147 days ago
> It's recommended (and much easier) to share access to a folder instead of individual files.

It’s not. folders don’t actually exist in google drive. files are shared individually. there’s a very complex interaction between imaginary folder ACLs and file ACLs. if you depend on the folders as being hierarchical (which they aren’t), this will bite you through unexpected leftover sharing.

The exceptionally stupidly names Shared drives (used to be called Team Drives) fix this.

Otherwise, ‘gam’ is the best tool out there for managing this.

Some of the paid tools are like VPNs. you end up giving full access to the tool developer. be very careful if you go with a paid tool vs ‘gam’.

1 comments

> folders don’t actually exist in google drive. files are shared individually.

What do you mean? Drive has UI for folders, shows folders hierarchically, and allow sharing of folders with a single dialog-box interaction. There are instructions online that explain how to use folders for organizing and sharing:

https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2375091

https://support.google.com/drive/answer/7166529

For a software engineer, it may help to understand how folders are implemented when dealing with tricky ACL situations, but for all practical purposes, and for the majority of (non-engineer) users, folders definitely exist in Drive.