Moving data from Google My Drive to a Google Shared Drive

The following procedure will allow you to transfer data from your Google My Drive to a Google Shared Drive. This method of moving files will keep files in their original format.

Considerations before starting

• This method is for transferring data to a Google Shared Drive.
• This transfer method is technical and should be done carefully.
• Transferring a large number of files in the My Drive directory will cause difficulties, including a delay in processing when selecting these files and high-resource usage on the local machine. 
• There is a limit of 100,000 items per manual move.
• An updated Google Chrome browser is recommended.
• Organizing your data into folders will make this process much simpler.
• Metadata on the files that are being moved will be lost.
• If you have a large amount of data to move, consider requesting that UDIT assists in moving the data.
• Consider the amount of data you plan to move, and make sure the storage limit on the Google Shared Drive is sufficient. The move process should check this, but you might spend a fair amount of time setting up a transfer only to have it fail. If the Google Shared Drive needs a limit increase to store the files you plan to move, use this form to request the increase. If you have not created the Google Shared Drive yet, see the next step. The default quota for a new Google Shared Drive is 50 GB.

Create a Google Shared Drive

1. Sign in to Google Drive and go browse to https://drive.google.com/drive/my-drive.
2. Right-click on Shared drives in the left panel:

3. Select New shared drive.

4. Name the drive something you will recognize.

5. Click Create.

 

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Evaluate the data you are moving

Moving files and folders that have been shared with you can be complicated and can lead to unexpected access issues. Review Google’s Move files & folders into shared drives kb and consider contacting UDIT for the best options to move shared data.

Move data to the shared drive

1. Go to https://drive.google.com (My Drive).
2. Select the files you would like to transfer.

Only files currently listed in the browser window will be selected. A maximum of 100,000 files can be selected per move.

• Ctrl + A selects all present files. Using an updated version of Google Chrome is highly recommended. 
• Ctrl + left click allows you to select multiple files individually.
• Shift + left click allows you to select all files in a sequence.

3. Click the Move button.

4. A screen similar to the one below displays. This screen allows you to choose where you will move the folders/files. Selecting a large number of files to move can create a delay, depending on your machine's processing and memory. Be patient, and allow Chrome to query the files. Due to the resources that can be used during a large move, it is best to let this process run without interference. The timing can range from almost instantly up to nearly 30 minutes, again depending on computer performance and the number of files.

5. Select All locations.

6. Select (double-click) Shared drives and highlight the shared drive you created.
7. Once you are certain you have selected the correct drive, click Move. 
8. The notification about permission changes for the moved files appears. Verify the drive you selected is listed in the pop-up, then choose Move.

9. Progress shows in the lower-left corner. Once the move completes, a prompt shows the option to undo the action. Choose this option only if you moved data to an unintended location.

10. The data is now in the Shared drive. 

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