How to Transfer Files Between Google Drive Accounts

Modified on Wed, 22 Jun, 2022 at 4:13 PM

1. Sharing the Document With Your Other Google Drive Account

If you just want to transfer one document over, you can do a one-off share to your other account. It doesn't require a lot of setup, and it's really easy to do.


  

  1.  Open your primary Google Drive account. 
  2.  Locate the files or folders you want to move to your secondary Google Drive account. 
  3.  Right-click on the file or folder and select Share  
  4.  Type your secondary Google username. Click on Advanced. Under Sharing settings, change the permission to Is Owner. Hit the blue Send button. 
  5.  Log into your secondary Google Drive account. Click on the Shared with me filter on the left sidebar to quickly locate the shared folder. 
  6.  Google Drive won't allow you to make a copy of the folder, but you can make a copy of the files inside it and then move them into a new folder or sub-folder to replicate the hierarchy of the original. 
  7.  Right-click on each file (or select them all) and click on Make a copy. Rename the files appropriately and move them into a new folder. 
  8.  Go back to the primary account and delete the original folder from your drive and also from its bin. 







2. Make a "Transfer Folder" in Google Drive

The above trick is wonderful if you want to do a one-off transfer from one account to another. However, if you feel you'll want to do more transfers in the future, you can make a folder that automatically shares files placed within it amongst your Google accounts.

  1.  First, make a new folder in Google Drive. You can do this by clicking New at the top-left, then clicking Folder.
         
  2.  Share the folder with your target account. You can do this just like how you shared a file in the above instructions. 
  3.  Drag a file you want to share with your other account into this folder. 
  4.  Google Drive will show a message asking if you want to "change who has access." This is warning you that, by moving your document into the other folder, you'll be sharing it with the other accounts that have access to the said folder. This is exactly what you want to do, so click Move
  5.  Log onto your other account, access your shared folder, and drag or move the files inside to wherever you want them to go. 

Was this article helpful?

That’s Great!

Thank you for your feedback

Sorry! We couldn't be helpful

Thank you for your feedback

Let us know how can we improve this article!

Select at least one of the reasons
CAPTCHA verification is required.

Feedback sent

We appreciate your effort and will try to fix the article