Prevent Google Drive files from being downloaded, printed, and copied (2024)

To prevent your files in Google Drive from being downloaded, printed and copied:

Select one or more files in Google Drive, click Share.

If you have access to the Google Admin Console, you can prevent files in Google Drive from being downloaded, printed, and copied by default.

Log in to Google Admin Console, go to Apps → Google Workspace → Drive and Docs.

Google Admin Console allows you to change this setting per organizational unit. This means that when people in a specific OU create shared drives, this will be the default setting. The setting won’t change if a shared drive is moved to a different OU.

Changing this setting affects only new shared drives. Existing shared drives will not be affected by this change.

Disabling this setting for an entire shared drive, or for all shared drives created in a specific organizational unit might not always be the best approach. Security must not come at the cost of collaboration, because when end-users are not able to do their job due to inadequately strict security regulations, they usually find a workaround that may be even less secure.

For example, at first glance the HR shared drive seems an ideal candidate to restrict all downloading, printing and copying of files, because HR often operates with sensitive information: salaries, employee evaluations, personal details of employees, and more. However, at the same time, HR also shares important non-confidential information with employees: company policy updates, announcements, holiday dates, and so on. It makes sense to share these with employees with the Viewer permissions, to prevent unauthorized edits and comments in the files. But employees may want to download the files to save them for future reference, and restricting this could lead both employees and the HR department to look for an alternative way to share these.

Rather than applying the restriction universally to an entire shared drive, you may want to prevent downloading, printing and copying only for certain files that are likely to contain confidential information. You might want to enforce restrictions only for files older than 3 months, those with a specific keyword in the title (e.g., ‘Contract’), or those labeled with a certain Drive label (e.g., ‘Confidential’). You may even go further and fine-tune the restriction to apply only to files shared with particular users, groups, or domains.

Google Admin Console currently does not provide the flexibility to manage the setting to allow viewers and commenters to download, print and copy files in bulk on a more granular level than per shared drive. But don’t worry, we got your back!

In Florbs File Security for Google Drive tool, you can click on any tile that summarizes file sharing stats in your organization. For example, “Public access”, which will take to a list of all files shared with “Anyone with the link”, or “External access” – all files that are shared outside your organization.

Select the files you want to manage and click on Manage files.

This will take you to Bulk file management section.

For example, in the screenshot below we are changing the setting for all files that are shared with “Anyone with the link”.

Done! You can also add this action as a security workflow, to be automatically applied to all files that meet your criteria in the future. That saves you time and effort, ensuring that all future files are always protected without delay.

Interested to learn more about best file security practices in Google Drive? Check out our white paper: File Security in Google Drive: A Comprehensive Guide, and follow us on LinkedIn for more Google Workspace tips!