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When you go to File > Make a copy in Google Drive it opens up a popup where you can rename the new copy.

There is a piece of the small print below that says comments will not be copied to the new document.

Is there a way to be able to copy the doc and at the same time copy any comments along with it? (If I'm not mistaken I think Google Docs used to do this by default.)

screenshot of copy popup

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3
  • No, Google Drive didn't used to copy comments. At least, not as far back as 2012. webapps.stackexchange.com/a/31197/354
    – ale
    Jun 10, 2016 at 15:22
  • For what it's worth, someone was trying to create a Google Apps Script which would copy comments from one Doc to the other: webapps.stackexchange.com/q/47732/354
    – ale
    Jun 10, 2016 at 15:25
  • Google added a new functionality that allows this. This should be the accepted answer.
    – n1000
    Aug 15, 2019 at 13:47

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
9
  • go to file
  • select Make a copy...
  • tick the checkbox Copy comments and suggestions

0

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  • 1
    This function is new and this answer should be accepted
    – n1000
    Jul 3, 2019 at 20:46
  • 3
    Please note that this feature is option to select wither or not to copy comments is NOT available if your document is a DOCX document. You will first have to convert the document to a Google Doc (which will copy comments), and THEN make your copy with/without comments.
    – Eric K
    Mar 16, 2021 at 18:13
6

If you use Chrome, the Copy Comments Chrome extensions purports to do this for you.

It's not perfect, however. In the usage notes, it says:

Due to the limits of the Google API there is a loss of information in copying over comments. The content of the comment is copied over; however, the time created, the time modified, and a few other pieces of information are loss. Furthermore, the comment is created by the user's account; however, the original authors name will be mentioned in the content of the copied comment.

Also, this post on the Google Product forums mentions a Google Drive add-on that you can add to Google Drive which does essentially the same thing.

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1
  • But it requires a lot of permissions (trust issue) + it only copies the current user comments. The only way to copy past comments is to export your gdoc as docx. Then in Gdoc copy past the text part containing your comment then reimport it in google drive, open it as gdoc (so if you need to copy past some text containg comments it's easier to stick on MSword for collaborative work).
    – JinSnow
    Jun 17, 2017 at 8:48
5

Apparently this is currently not possible. One workaround is to download the document as Word file (.docx) and re-import it in Google Docs. Just like in the accepted answer, tracked changes will be lost, nevertheless.

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