How can I share Google Drive folders with a group?

Question

I'm using Google Apps and trying to share a nested folder structure with many files with a google group.

Example

Group
[email protected]

Group Members
[email protected]
[email protected]
etc.

Shared Folder Structure
parent/
parent/files

parent/folder-1/
parent/folder-1/files

parent/folder-1/folder-1.1/
parent/folder-1/folder-1.1/files

parent/folder-2/
parent/folder-2/files

parent/folder-2/folder-2.1/
parent/folder-2/folder-2.1/files

etc.

Sharing with individual users works

If I share the parent directory with the users individually (i.e. [email protected]), it works as expected:

• The folder structure shows up in the Folders Shared with Me section
• The files show up in the Files Shared with Me section

Sharing with groups doesn't work

If I share the parent directory with a group ([email protected]) that contains the same individual users, it doesn't work as expected:

• The folder structure does not show up in the Folders Shared with Me section
• The files do not show up in the Files Shared with Me section
• However the files do show up in the All Files section

Why isn't this working?

Any ideas why there are different behaviors when sharing with individual users vs. sharing with groups and is it possible to make this work?

Answer 1

We have also seen some inconsistencies re. sharing of folders/documents not with groups but with all attached to our domain. Have you tried sending the group a link to the parent folder? When the link is clicked on it may then make that folder and its children visible to the group under "Folders Shared with Me".