There are three ways to store and/or share files in Google Drive: My Drive, Shared Drives, and Shared with Me. 

 

 

When you navigate to Google Drive from the icon in your WesPortal, the default view is of what's in your My Drive. Content is organized by folders and then files.

 

My Drive

Faculty and staff have up to 300 GB of storage available through My Drive. Students have unlimited storage until graduation, at which point in time as alumni their quota will be reduced to 50 GB. Users can check their storage usage from the left menu bar.

 

Think of My Drive as your personal storage for files you have created or uploaded. Files and folders created here are owned by you.

Sharing Files in My Drive

You do not have to share files/folders in My Drive, but you can if you like. Files/folders must be shared individually. They can be shared with both Wesleyan users and non-Wesleyan users.

You can grant other users varying levels of access to folders/files in your My Drive:

• Editors can make changes and share files/folders
• Commentators can only comment
• Viewers can only read

 

Shared Drives

Shared drives are central spaces where files/folders can be stored and accessed by a group.

Faculty and staff cannot create shared drives. Shared drives will only be available for faculty/staff via special request and approval. Generally, shared drives will only be approved in cases involving students, such as for classes where students submit large files. Approved shared drives will be retained for five years. After five years, the shared drive will be deleted. 

Students have the ability to create shared drives. There is no limit to how many shared drives a student can create or on its storage capacity. However, all student-created shared drives will be deleted when the student graduates.

Alumni do not have the ability to create shared drives.

Access Levels in a Shared Drive

All members of the shared drive have automatic access to all the content on the shared drive, but may have different access levels. Individuals who are not members of the shared drive can be given access to specific files and/or folders, and they can access that content from "Shared with me" (please see below).

• Managers have full administrative control
• Content Managers can add, edit, delete, and move files
• Contributors can only add files
• Commentators can only comment
• Viewers can only read 

Shared Drive Creators

While shared drives do not have a technical owner, the person who created the shared drive is the Creator. You can determine who the Creator of a shared drive is by selecting the shared drive and then clicking on the i icon in the top right corner. A panel with details about the shared drive, including the creator, will slide open from the right.

 

 

As the Creator, the shared drive is associated with their account and they serve as the default owner of the shared drive. Only the creator will be contacted by ITS regarding shared drive retention. Accordingly, if you want to keep copies of files/folder from shared drives in which you are not the creator, please be sure to copy the desired content to your My Drive from the shared drive before its deletion.

 

Shared With Me

Folders/files that users have shared with you from their My Drive or from a shared drive will appear in your Shared with me. Content in Shared with me is not actually in your Google Drive; it is just links to content in someone else’s My Drive or shared drive. They do not contribute to your My Drive storage limit.

Please be advised, the Shared with me section of Google Drive by default lists items in the order they were shared (by date) which can lead to frustration when people go looking for shared files.