Google Shared Drive Permissions: The Admin’s Guide

Google shared drives use five access levels: Manager, Content manager, Contributor, Commenter, and Viewer. Manager controls membership and the drive itself, Content manager is the default and can add, edit, move, and move files or folders to Trash, Contributor can edit and add but cannot move items to Trash, Commenter can only comment, and Viewer can only look. The big difference from a normal My Drive file is that a shared drive and its contents are owned by the organization, not by any one person. Here is what each level can do and when to use it.

Shared drive permissions confuse people because they look like the Viewer, Commenter, Editor roles on an ordinary Drive file but they are not the same. There are five of them, not three, and the two extra roles exist to answer one practical question: who is allowed to delete things and manage the drive itself.

Role	Best for	Can edit?	Can move to Trash?	Can manage members?
Manager	Drive owners and admins	Yes	Yes	Yes
Content manager	Daily collaborators	Yes	Yes	No
Contributor	Editors who should not delete	Yes	No	No
Commenter	Reviewers	No	No	No
Viewer	Reference access	No	No	No

The five access levels, from most to least power

Manager. The highest shared-drive role, subject to any organization-level restrictions set by Workspace admins. Managers can add and remove members, change other members’ access levels, move folders in and out, set limited access on folders, permanently delete files from the trash, and delete the shared drive itself (Google Workspace Learning Center). Give this to the small number of people who own the drive.

Content manager (the default). When you add a new member, they become a Content manager unless you change it. Content managers can add, edit, and move files, move files and folders to Trash, and share files and folders, but they cannot manage membership or permanently delete from the Trash or delete the drive (Google Workspace Learning Center). This is the right level for most active collaborators.

Contributor. Can view, comment, edit, and add new files, move files from My Drive into the shared drive, restore files from Trash, and add or remove people on specific files. Contributors cannot move items within the shared drive and cannot move files or folders to Trash (Google Workspace Learning Center). Use this when you want people to build and edit but not remove things. One caveat: in Google Drive for desktop, Contributor gives only read access, so people who work through the desktop app need at least Content manager.

Commenter. Can view and comment, nothing more.

Viewer. Can view only. Use Commenter or Viewer for finished, reference, or completed-project content that should not change (Google Workspace Learning Center).

What only a Manager can do

Some actions are reserved for Managers, and this is usually where admins get tripped up. Only a Manager can add or remove members, change access levels, move folders from My Drive into the shared drive, move files between shared drives, set limited access on a folder, rename or re-theme the drive, permanently delete from the trash, and delete the drive (Google Workspace Learning Center). Content managers can do almost everything with files, but not with membership or the drive itself.

There is also a useful control for Managers and admins: you can prevent Content managers from sharing folders, which keeps sharing decisions in fewer hands (Google Workspace Learning Center).

Restrictions can narrow these roles

The five access levels are the baseline, not the whole model. Managers and Workspace admins can apply restrictions on top that override normal file and folder sharing. They can block sharing outside the organization, prevent people who are not shared drive members from being added to files, stop Content managers from sharing folders, and prevent Content managers, Contributors, Commenters, and Viewers from downloading, copying, or printing files (Google Workspace Learning Center, “How file access works in shared drives”). Admins can also lock these settings so individual Managers cannot override them. So a member’s role tells you their maximum access, but a restriction can quietly narrow it.

Folder-level access inside a shared drive

Within a shared drive, specific folders can be shared with particular people or given more targeted collaboration paths. What folder sharing generally cannot do is make someone’s access lower than their shared-drive role. The one exception is limited-access folders, which a Manager can use to restrict a folder to fewer people than the drive as a whole (Google Workspace Learning Center).

How this differs from My Drive sharing

On a normal file in My Drive, there is an owner, and you grant others Viewer, Commenter, or Editor access. In a shared drive there is no individual owner. The organization owns the content, membership is managed at the drive level, and the five access levels replace the three My Drive roles. That is the whole point of shared drives: the files do not belong to a person who might leave. For how the ordinary roles work, see our explainer on Google Drive permissions.

External members and unsupported editions

If your organization allows external sharing, you can add people outside your domain to a shared drive as long as they have a Google account, and anything they contribute becomes owned by your organization (Google Workspace Learning Center). Whether that is allowed is an admin decision: admins control external sharing for Drive and shared drives at the organization level, and can limit it to trusted domains or turn it off entirely (Google Admin Help, “Manage external sharing”). People on a Google Workspace edition that does not include shared drives can only be added as Viewers, though they may still get comment or edit access to specific files depending on folder permissions (Google Workspace Learning Center).

Which access level should I use?

• Owns and runs the drive: Manager.
• Active collaborator who adds and edits daily: Content manager (the default).
• Should build and edit but never delete: Contributor.
• Needs to weigh in but not change files: Commenter.
• Reference or finished content that must not change: Viewer.

For most teams, use Content manager as the working default, keep Manager limited to drive owners, and use Contributor when you want editing without deletion rights.

[SCREENSHOT: “Manage members” dialog on a shared drive showing the access-level dropdown – SOURCE: Google Drive UI (we capture)]

FAQ

What are the access levels in a Google shared drive?
Manager, Content manager, Contributor, Commenter, and Viewer. Manager has full control including membership and deletion, and Viewer can only look (Google Workspace Learning Center).

What is the default access level for a new shared drive member?
Content manager. New members can add, edit, move, and move files to Trash unless you set a lower level (Google Workspace Learning Center).

What is the difference between Content manager and Contributor?
Both can edit and add files, but a Content manager can move files and folders within the shared drive and move them to Trash (though not permanently delete them from Trash), while a Contributor cannot move items within the drive or move them to Trash (Google Workspace Learning Center).

Who can delete a shared drive?
Only a Manager, and only after the drive is empty (Google Workspace Learning Center).

Can I add people from outside my organization to a shared drive?
Yes, if your organization allows external sharing and they have a Google account. Their contributions become owned by your organization (Google Workspace Learning Center).

How is a shared drive different from sharing a My Drive folder?
A My Drive file has an individual owner and uses Viewer, Commenter, and Editor roles. A shared drive is owned by the organization and uses the five access levels above, managed at the drive level.

Can shared drive restrictions override a member’s access level?
Yes. Managers and Workspace admins can apply restrictions that narrow what members can do, including blocking external sharing, preventing non-members from being added to files, and preventing Content managers, Contributors, Commenters, and Viewers from downloading, copying, or printing files (Google Workspace Learning Center).

Manage shared drive access at scale

Access levels are simple on one drive. Across dozens of shared drives and hundreds of members, keeping roles correct is the hard part. Patronum gives admins domain-wide visibility of who can access what and supports bulk remediation of oversharing, so shared drive membership stays right without auditing each drive by hand.

Sources

• Google Workspace Learning Center, “Create a shared drive” (access-level table): https://support.google.com/a/users/answer/9310249
• Google Workspace Learning Center, “How file access works in shared drives”: https://support.google.com/a/users/answer/12380484
• Google Workspace Admin Help, “Manage shared drives as an admin” (restrictions): https://support.google.com/a/answer/7662202
• Google Admin Help, “Manage external sharing for your organization”: https://support.google.com/a/answer/60781