Google - Trying to create a My Drive or Shared Drive of photos that parents can downl

[TwistedHelixis]

I am trying to create a Shared 'My drive' folder or 'Shared Drive' folder with photos for the parents to download. The problem is we have our Drive and Shared Drive settings very locked down to prevent external sharing.

 

If I create a 'My Drive' folder and use the 'Anyone with the link' option, set as 'viewer', parents can only view the photos, not download. There doesn't seem to be a link option with download as an option to pick.

 

If I create a new Shared Drive, with a folder of photos inside, it has the following under link sharing 'Restricted, Only people with access can open with the link'. I cant pick 'Anyone with a link' as its not an option.

 

I did try creating a new OU and then creating a new Shared drive in there, then applying external settings to that OU, but still no joy.

 

Am I correct in thinking that its my user settings that would need to be changed in Workspace > Apps > Drive > Sharing outside of settings page? If so, should I create a new account and then apply external settings to this new account. I don't want to change the settings on my normal account.

 

I also have the following 2 options that I think might work......

 

1. Create a new user in Workspace, perhaps called parents. Share either the My Drive or Shared drive folder with this user, then email out the user login details to the parents with the folder link.

2. Create a new user in Workspace with external sharing enabled, then create the new shared drive using this account.

 

Am I over complicating things?

What would you do?

[jthompson]

Don't do #1

I would create a generic account designed for the purpose, and manage the sharing from that account. A Shared Drive seems like neater option to me, but IIRC you'll have to create a folder within the shared drive and share that folder, rather than trying to adjust the membership of the shared drive itself.

Having a specific OU for your shared drive to reside in is a good idea, so that you can tailor the sharing settings for it without impacting the rest of your org's existing shared drives.

Edited July 11, 2024 by jthompson

[TwistedHelixis]

Think I have worked it out. If not Ill post back. Cheers

[TwistedHelixis]

OK, so it turned out I had a few different issues, the main one being that moving the files internally within Google to my new photos folder in a Shared drive would't let the parents download the photos, but if I download the photos to my computer and then upload them into the same shared drive folder, the parents can now download the files.

 

Any idea why its like this?

 

Makes no sense to me as I thought files moved to a completely new shared drive would take on those shared drive settings, but apparently not.

Edited July 11, 2024 by TwistedHelixis

[jthompson]

You've maybe created shortcuts to them rather than moving them?

[TwistedHelixis]

No, definitely the original photos. All other settings seem to switch to the new shared drive settings except weather the user can download them, which seems to have copied over from the original location.

 

I have done a few other tests, with other files and this does seem to be the case, at least for this domain. I look after a few other domains, so might see what happens with those, if I get time.