Want advanced Google Workspace features for your business? Try Google Workspace today! After you share a file, you can stop sharing at any time. You can also control if people you've shared with can change or share your file. When you update permissions for an item in My Drive, you may be prompted to manage permissions for the folder it's in. This happens if you try to give someone less access to the item than they inherit from the parent folder. This ensures consistent access across the entire folder. Stop sharing a file If you share a file with people, the owner and anyone with edit access can change sharing permissions and share the file. If you don’t want anyone to publicly access your file, stop publishing the file . If you remove or reduce access for a person who has access to the item’s folder, the permission is either removed or changed for the entire folder. On your computer, find the file or folder in Google Drive . To find out If a file or folder is shared: Right click the file or folder. On the right side of file, click More . Click File Information Details . Right click the file or folder. On the right side of file, click More . Click File Information Details . A panel opens and shows who owns and has access to the file. If you have permission to make changes, click Manage access . Find the file or folder in: Google Drive Google Docs Google Sheets Google Slides Open or select the file or folder. Click Share or Share . Find the person you want to stop sharing with. To the right of their name, click the Down arrow Remove access . When you change an item's general access to Restricted, only people with access can open the file. This overrides inherited parent folder permissions. Find the file or folder in Google Drive , Google Docs , Google Sheets , or Google Slides . Open or select the file or folder. Click Share or Share Copy link . Under “General access”, click the Down arrow . Select Restricted . If you delete a shared file that you own: People that can view, comment, or edit can make a copy of the file until you permanently delete it. To permanently delete the file, click the file in your trash, and click Delete forever . Learn more about deleting files . If you delete a shared file that you don’t own: The file will be removed from your Drive , but other collaborators can still access it. To get the file back, open a link to the file File Add to My Drive . Limit how your files are shared If you own a file, you can take steps so that users can’t print, copy, or download it: Find the file or folder in: Google Drive Google Docs Google Sheets Google Slides Select one or more files you want to limit. Click Share or Share .

At the top right, click Settings . Under “People who can download, copy, and print,” check the boxes that correspond to which user role(s) you want to allow. If “Editors” are specified, the copy and paste behavior for the selected documents changes to the following: Users can copy and paste document content within the document. Users can copy and paste outside content into the document. Users can’t copy and paste document content outside the document. To prevent file owners from downloading, copying, and printing, administrators can create a DLP rule for Drive . You can limit how people share, print, download, and copy within Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides. However, you can't stop how others share the file content in other ways. In Google Drive for Desktop, files restricted from being downloaded appear as .gdrive shortcuts. As the owner of the file, you can remove Editors’ ability to change permissions or share the file. Open the file in: Google Drive Google Docs Google Sheets Google Slides At the top, click Settings . Uncheck Editors can change permissions and share . Files and folders within a shared folder always inherit its permissions. This ensures consistent and predictable access across all of your content. The folder's permissions control the access for everything it contains. If you uncheck "Editors can change permissions and share" on a specific file, permission changes made to the parent folder still apply to that file. The parent folder's permissions are the primary source of truth for access. Example scenario: You have a file set to "Prevent editors from sharing" inside a folder. You then make someone an Editor of the entire folder. If that Editor shares the whole folder with a new person, that new person will get access to the file. This happens because the file's setting only stops someone from sharing the file directly, but it doesn't stop them from sharing the folder it's in. Example scenario: You have a file set to "Prevent editors from sharing" inside a folder. You then make someone an Editor of the entire folder. If that Editor shares the whole folder with a new person, that new person will get access to the file. This happens because the file's setting only stops someone from sharing the file directly, but it doesn't stop them from sharing the folder it's in. You have a file set to "Prevent editors from sharing" inside a folder. You then make someone an Editor of the entire folder. If that Editor shares the whole folder with a new person, that new person will get access to the file. This happens because the file's setting only stops someone from sharing the file directly, but it doesn't stop them from sharing the folder it's in. More options with Google Accounts through work or school Set an expiration date for a file Open a file in Google Drive , Google Docs , Google Sheets , or Google Slides . Click Share find the user you'd like to give temporary permissions to. If you haven't shared the file with that person yet, add the user's email and click Send or Share . At the top right of the document, click Share again. If you haven't shared the file with that person yet, add the user's email and click Send or Share . At the top right of the document, click Share again. Next to the person's name, click the Down arrow Add expiration . Next to "Access expires," click a date to set as the expiration date. Choose a date within one year of the current date. Change share settings for Google Forms Google Forms often have different sharing options than other kinds of files. Share forms for people to fill out and submit Share forms for others to collaborate Related resources Share files from Google Drive Transfer file ownership Share folders in Google Drive Find files shared with you Need more help? Try these next steps: To get the latest tips, tricks, and how-to's, subscribe to our YouTube Channel .