Transfer Ownership of Smith Files

If you created files as part of your Smith job, course instruction, student organization involvement, or a team or group project, there are likely files you will want to ensure someone else can access and manage. This is important if, for example, you transfer to a new position, leave your student job, or your time at Smith is ending.

Determining Your Approach

When transitioning to a new role at Smith, graduating, or leaving Smith, there are likely files that you need to organize and share with others to ensure a smooth transition. Both students and employees have access to Google Drive, and you might need to organize and share files in Drive areas that only you currently have access to manage.

To determine the best approach for transferring ownership of files, consider the following:

If the files are owned by you and are currently stored under your personal My Drive, we recommend that you move them to an existing or new Google Shared Drive that you are a Manager or Content Manager of. We recommend moving the files instead of copying them since moving files to a new location/Shared Drive folder will preserve the document history.
If the files are stored in a Google Shared Drive folder and you are currently a Manager of that Shared Drive, make sure that at least one other drive member has Manager permissions.

As an employee, you may have also created and stored files in network drive areas–also known as H: (home) and S: (shared) drives. If so, you will also want to consider what files to organize and share from those areas. Now may be the appropriate time to move files to Google Drive and share files that way or to move them to the most appropriate S: drive area. See the section Move Network Drive Files.

To transfer personal Google files that are currently stored on your Smith Google Drive, see Copy Personal Email, Drive Files, and Other Google Data

Move Google My Drive files to a Shared Google Drive

It is recommended that you take this opportunity to clean up and organize files you own and want to share with others into folders. Organizing files in folders will help you move groups of files at a time.

If you have files and shortcuts to files shared with you but you are not the owner, these files will be moved to the new folder by default, preserving the current owner's access and the owner will still have the original file, and other collaborators will retain access.

Move the remaining files to a new Google Shared drive:

Go to your Google Shared drives and create a new folder. If helpful, include your name as part of the folder name.
Create sub-folders as necessary.
Add a co-worker and/or manager as a Manager to the new Shared drive folder. (Once your account has been removed, anyone with Manager access will be able to share and manage your documents.)
Move files from My Drive into the new folder(s).

Note: If you need to copy files to take with you, do that after the files have been moved. This action will preserve the history of the original files.

If you move shortcuts to files that don't belong to you, the owner will still have the original file, and other collaborators will retain access.

Check and Adjust Google Shared Drive Permissions

To review existing Shared Drive folders and ensure that others at Smith will retain access to your files, view and manage members of the shared drives. Make sure that at least one other drive member has Manager permissions to drive areas you manage. For information on member permissions and adding/managing members, visit Google's Help Center article, Store and Share Files or Folders with Shared Drives. For an overview, see Google Drive.

For Employees: Move Network Drive Files

Note: This section pertains only to faculty and staff members.

If your department still utilizes the H: and S: drives, determine with your manager whether moving your files to a Google Shared Drive or a designated shared S: drive is appropriate. For a comparison of these storage choices, see Storage and Backup.

Moving Files to a Google Shared Drive

Refer to Upload Files and Folders to Google Drive for information about uploading files to Google Drive.

Moving Files to the S: Drive

Clean up and organize files by placing them in folders with meaningful names.
In your home directory (H:), create a folder with your name and move files and folders to the newly created folder.
Move that folder and all its contents to the department shared drive for others to access after you leave.

Note: Please contact ITS if you need assistance with any of the following: your home directory is too large for you to move, you need a restricted folder on the shared network drive, or your home directory folder is going to another staff member.

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