FAQ - GOOGLE DRIVE: Can I Organize My Shared With me?

In Google Drive, if you go to the left side of the screen and click Shared With Me, you’ll see all the files that have been shared with you… ever. 

When I do Google Drive training and show people Shared With Me for the first time, there is always one core question: CAN I ORGANIZE THIS?

The short answer is no. Well, kind of.

Shared With Me will always be a chaotic incoming stream of files, almost like asking if you can organize your social media feed in YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. 

You can’t make folders in Shared With Me, and you could spend hours “deleting” everything there you don’t want to see (be careful if you do this though - in ye olden days of Drive this could risk deleting files for everyone shared on the file) BUT the flood would come back shortly after anyway as new files continue to be shared.

My main advice is to spend most of the time pretending Shared With Me isn’t there. Only wade into the flood if there is a recent file you need to grab from there. 

To maintain a zen Google Drive experience, the key is to take the things that have been shared with you that you’re interested in putting in your own Drive folders as soon as they are shared. Just right click on the file and add it to your Drive, then you can put that important shared file somewhere blissfully organized in My Drive.