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I left a project with a massive Google Drive shared folder. For a number of reasons, namely that I don't want all of those files indexed when I search my personal Drive files, I want to un-share the folder with myself.

How is that done without deleting the folder for everyone else?

My progress so far is that I recognized if I deleted the folder with my previous permissions I might delete it or at least move it to Trash for all of the collaborators. Thus, I tried to remove it by opening the "share with" menu and removing my privileges. The result is that I'm no longer in the list of editors but the folder is still in my filesystem and it is still indexed in my searches.

Update: I just clicked the Remove button. The folder disappeared from the main view but I still see other users' activity on those files in my Activity pane and the files remain in search results.

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2
  • 1
    Are you the owner of the folder?
    – ale
    Sep 16, 2014 at 15:40
  • 1
    No. Definitely not anymore since I removed my previous permissions.
    – Joseph Hansen
    Sep 16, 2014 at 16:57

5 Answers 5

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6

This worked for me.

  1. Go to https://drive.google.com/drive/shared-with-me
  2. Find the folder shared with you
  3. Right click the folder
  4. Click Remove
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2
  • 2
    After selecting Remove and dragging the files/folders into the trash, they still show under the search results.
    – AdamHurwitz
    Dec 25, 2020 at 18:00
  • 1
    Try drag&drop of the folder into Trash. Worked for me, while "Remove" did not.
    – bers
    Jun 12, 2022 at 9:30
9

Click on the item in the list of documents, and drag it to the trash bin icon (located on the left edge of the page).

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5
  • 4
    Can you expand on this a bit? It's quite vague at present.
    – jonsca
    Apr 4, 2017 at 1:23
  • 1
    why a negative vote to this one? I actually WAS able to drag it and move to trash... and yes this trick works... :)
    – Shezi
    Jan 30, 2019 at 17:50
  • 3
    This is the ONLY thing that worked for me. The "correct" answer didn't work, and the upvoted answers didn't work.
    – Alan Wells
    Nov 16, 2020 at 21:50
  • This did not work. After selecting Remove and dragging the files/folders into the trash, they still show under the search results.
    – AdamHurwitz
    Dec 25, 2020 at 18:01
  • In my case, it was a video I wanted to Remove, rather than a folder, but the Remove option was greyed out, as was the trash icon above the files when the file was selected. This technique of dragging the item into the Trash on the left side bar was the only option that was available, and thankfully did work.
    – Highly Irregular
    Sep 7 at 3:35
7

I was just able to do this, successfully it seems.

Right click the folder to change share options. First, I changed the ownership of the file to someone else on the share, someone who previously was an editor. I saved that change, and that made me into an editor.

Next I edited the share options again and removed myself completely.

I did not have to delete the file so I am sure that it still exists for my partners, simply that I no longer have access to it and it is no longer clogging up my G-Drive.

Here's more about transferring file ownership: https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2494892?hl=en

And more about the solution of removing yourself as an editor: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/drive/jFHYjP1WRRw

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0

At this time it's not possible for users to remove themselves from the file or folder shared with them when the file/folder is shared by using their individual email address, but users could remove the file or folder from the "My Drive"

If the file is shared by using a Google Group you could try to leave the group. From Unsubscribe from a group:

How to unsubscribe from a group

Follow these steps:

  1. Sign in to Google Groups.
  2. Click My Groups.
  3. Choose a group.
  4. In the upper-right corner, click My settings and then Leave this group.
    • To stay in the group but stop getting emails, click Membership and email settings. Then, choose the Don't send email updates option.
    • To leave the group and stop getting emails, click Leave group.

References

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-1

To remove yourself from accessing a google drive file, you can simply go to your google drive then check the files. Now, right-click on the file, and select remove. Or there is another way to remove your access from the shared file from a google drive. Simply, comment or send a mail to the file admin and request to remove your name from the shared file. Check here for a detailed guide on how to remove access from google drive.

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