How to Turn on or off external sharing of files and folders in Drive

Turn on or off external sharing of files

As an administrator, you can control if users can share Google Drive files and folders with people outside your organization who have Google Accounts. These sharing settings apply to items from Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, My Maps, folders, and anything else stored in Drive.

Sharing content in Drive with people outside your organization can be an important collaboration process, but it also carries the risk of data leaks.

If you turn on external sharing, you have options to limit sharing, such as warning users before they share or preventing link sharing. 

If you turn off external sharing, users can’t share the following items with external users:

• Invitations to items created in Docs, Sheets, and Slides Links to files stored in Drive
• Items attached to emails, either uploaded directly from devices or stored in Drive 

Steps to turn external sharing on or off:

1. In the Admin console, go to Menu > Apps > Google Workspace > Drive and Docs.
2. Click Sharing settings > Sharing options.

 

3. To apply the setting to everyone, leave the top organizational unit selected. Otherwise, select a child organizational unit or a configuration group.

4. To turn on external sharing:

1. 1. In the Sharing outside of your organization section, click On and choose sharing options.

 

           b. warn users when they try to share externally, check the Warn when files owned by users                  or shared drives in your organization are shared outside of your organization box.

          c. To allow users to share content with people who don’t use Google Accounts, check the                      Allow users or shared drives in your organization to share items with people outside your                organization who aren't using a Google account box.
              Note: To edit or comment on files, users must sign in to a Google Account (or a visitor                      account if you have visitor sharing turned on)

          d. To allow link sharing (when anyone with the link can access the file), check When                               sharing  outside of your organization is allowed, users in your organization can make                       files and published web content visible to anyone with the link.

5. To turn off external sharing:

1. 1. In the Sharing outside of your organization section, click Off.

           b. To also prevent external content from being shared with your users, including content in                  third-party storage systems, uncheck Allow users in your organization to receive files                        from users outside of your organization.

6. Click Save.