This is an easy and fast way to remove collaborator / other user access to every & all of your documents in Google Drive
******Updated July 16, 2019******
We here in my circle with my partners use Google drive a lot to share documents, information, plans and to do lists.
I think we all have been in that situation that we collaborate on a project, share info maybe even log ins and then there comes the day where you just have to clean it up. I spend fair amount of time trying to find a solution to delete a certain person on all my documents, believe it or not after a fair amount of googleling I finally found one, yes ONE, how to on doing so and not having to go through everything and delete that person document by document. And it’s sooo easy….
So let me share with you how to do so and save you some time {as always, just click on the pictures to see them enlarged}
First open up your Google Drive, expand your search menu by clicking the down arrow. There you will be able to choose all files or specific ones, all owned by you (wait me 😉 ) or owned by anyone. Adjust those settings to your own needs
If you have A LOT of files and folders, other users recommended going about this in a certain way:
1. delete access to folders (which deletes their access to the fires in that folder)
2. then delete access in single files
Do so by choosing “folder” in the Type dropdown.
This cuts down on the number of shared items in your search list (10 folders vs 100s of separate files) and therefore the chance of GSuite crashing etc
Now enter the name of the person you want to delete access for > Search
Changing to the list view, if you haven’t done so yet, might make life a little easier. You can find that on the top-right close to your settings.
Once the list appears, scroll down, keep scrolling, and more scrolling …. till the list stops expanding and all files are shown on your screen
A few keyboard shortcuts will come in handy.
CTRL+A = select all
Click first – Hold shift – click last = all in between are selected
Click first – hold CTRL – click next – click next = all clicked will be selected
Right-click and then select the menu item “Share”
open the “Advanced” settings (bottom right)
Now you should see this (I selected all):
Now you can remove access for any user you’d like by clicking the little grey x or change the level of access with help of the Visibility menu on top. AND don’t forget to save!!!
I hope this helps you. Please leave a comment and tell me how much time I saved you! 😉
Additional tips:
If you don’t owe the documents you want to share you need to adjust your search accordingly.
Make browse the comments as many awesome people have chimed in with further workarounds when you have A LOT of files and folders.
