How to Share Google Drive Files & Folders with a Link

​Google Drive makes it easy to share files and folders with others. But when you use a shareable link, you can make collaboration so much easier. In this video, Scott Friesen shows you how he uses Google Drive to share files with his clients with just one link.

Transcript:
​Do you need to share the same files or folder with a variety of different clients? Well, in today's video, I'm gonna show you how to do exactly that right here in Google Drive. Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And I'm gonna show you exactly how I use Google Drive for my own business, how I can just share one single link with a variety of clients and make sure that they're always getting the most recent or most up-to-date files. But first, I'd like to thank today's sponsor, Icecream PDF Editor. If you're looking for an easy way to edit your PDF documents, you should try Icecream PDF Editor. It's 100% free and it will allow you to edit your text, edit your objects and perhaps one of my favorite features is rearranging and managing multiple PDF pages. So, if you'd like to try Icecream PDF Editor for yourself, be sure to click the link in the description below. So, let me show you exactly how I use Google Drive to share certain files and folders with my clients. First, let me give you my use case. I'm a speaker, at least a big portion of my business is speaking at conferences, giving keynotes, delivering workshops and so after I engage with an event planner or someone who's hired me, I wanna share particular documents with them. If we go back to Google Drive, I've got this folder called Folder for Client Resources and when I click on that, I've got a few things that I share with everyone who hires me. I've got things like my headshot, a few pictures here that they might want to include in their marketing. I've got my bio, which will usually be included in a printout or a handout or also on their website. And maybe a few different things that I include in the workshops themselves, some exercises that they may need to have access to, so that they can print them off in advance. Now, this collection of information, I need to share with a wide variety of people, but it's not exactly private. I really don't care if you have access to this or if someone else stumbles upon it. There's nothing secure here, there's nothing private here, but I don't like including this information on my website because I'd rather not have someone just stumble upon that site and say, what is this and what is this purpose? I also don't wanna manage just an extra webpage on my website. So, instead, I've created this folder here within Google Drive. Now, if we go up here to the folder name, we can right click and select share. Now, you might be familiar with this pop-up that comes here and probably you're used to entering in a name or an email address of the people that you want to share with. And of course, I could do this as well. I could just keep a long list, just keep adding people who need access to these files, but that's gonna be very tedious. I'm gonna have to come in here each and every time, find the email address and in many cases, I'm dealing with just one individual and they want to be able to share this with other members of their team, so then they need to ask for additional access and that type of thing. So, in this case, instead of entering any email addresses, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna click up here and say get the shareable link. And what that's gonna do is that anyone with the link, this is the default option that comes up, anyone with the link can view. So, it's generated a unique link here. All I have to do is copy that link. I can copy that link, I can hit done down below. Now, again, you wanna make sure that it says only can view. We're not giving people access to edit. The default choice is view, so let's make sure that we continue with that option there. But I've got my link now. I've copied it already, I'm gonna say done and then just to show you what the guest or what my client will receive, let me open up a new incognito window here and I'm gonna paste that link in the window, in the URL. This is exactly what they will see on their end when they click on the link, they're gonna have access to these files and they can open them up, they can click on my bio, they can download it, they can print it out if they want, of course, they can't edit it, they can download my pictures. Here are all the resources that I need. And remember, I've just got the one link. This is just the one link available here. I just need to remember or copy this link and use it multiple times pretty much as how long I would like to, for the next coming years, if I want to. Now, the great thing is that whatever I do within this folder, it's going to automatically update and anyone who has access to this is gonna have the latest information. For example, maybe I no longer want this file, for example, available. I'm just gonna hit delete on that. I'm gonna put that in the trash can and maybe in the future, I'm gonna update my headshot. So, I don't have to go out and email a variety of people and say, by the way, could you please now use my updated headshot or can you put this in the program. If they have this link that I've given to them in advance, they're always gonna have that updated information available to them. Now, you might be saying to yourself, Scott, I don't wanna share that big long nasty link. That looks intimidating, it looks very ugly and yes, it is very, very long. Well, no, I don't recommend that you share the link in its natural state either. I'm gonna copy that link one more time, so when I'm dealing with a client, I might share it in the following way. Here I am, I'm sending an email. Please use the link below to access my speaker resources and I'm just gonna call this Scott Freisen Folder, something like that. All you need to do within Gmail or almost any other online editor is just highlight the text. I'm gonna come down here to the bottom and select insert link and it's here that I'm gonna paste in that Google Drive link. This is the folder that I'm gonna send them to. I'm gonna hit okay and now I've got a nice clean looking link. It looks straightforward, it tells them exactly what it is and when they click on this link, they can get all of my resources. So, do you have a need for such an open shared folder? Remember, I only recommend this for documents or for files that you really don't mind the rest of the world gaining access to. Maybe there's a particular questionnaire that you send out to clients. Maybe there's some other documents or data that you like to share and it's alright if other people have access to it, but they don't really need access to it, until they become a client or at some step in the relationship. This is a great use for this type of shared folder within Google Drive. Well, I'd love to hear from you next. What other tips would you like to learn how to do right here within Google Drive. Be sure to tell me down below in the comments. Thank you so much for watching today's video. I hope you subscribe right here to the Simpletivity Channel. Give this video a thumbs up and don't forget to leave me a comment down below. Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.