How To Check Who Can Access Your Google Drive™ Files and Folders?
Have you ever wondered who can view, edit, or share your files and folders in Google Drive? It’s essential for security and managing your team. In this guide, we will show you how to inspect file/folder permissions, see who has access, and how you can revoke or change permissions.
Introduction
Google Drive makes it easy to store, share, and collaborate on files. You can give access to teammates, external partners, clients, or anyone with a link in just a few clicks. But over time, permissions can become hard to track. Files may stay shared with former employees, external domains, old collaborators, or public links. This can create security risks, especially when sensitive company data is stored in Drive.
Google Drive lets you check access manually, but it can be slow when you need to review many files or folders. You often need to open each item one by one, check the sharing settings, and repeat the process across your Drive.
There are a few ways to check who can access your Google Drive content:
- Use Google Drive’s built-in sharing panel to check access on individual files or folders. Learn more.
- Ask your Google Workspace admin for help when you need broader visibility across your organization. Learn more
- Use Folgo to audit files, folders, Shared Drives, or your full Drive account and generate a clear Google Sheets report.
Why auditing Google Drive access matters
Checking who can access your Google Drive files is important for security, compliance, and daily organization.
An audit can help you:
- Find files shared with external users.
- Identify public links and risky access.
- Review who can view, comment, edit, or share files.
- Check permissions before sharing sensitive content.
- Clean up outdated access after a project ends.
- Prepare for employee offboarding.
- Improve Google Workspace security and compliance.
Without regular audits, sensitive files can stay accessible to the wrong people without anyone noticing.
What Folgo’s Audit feature gives you
Folgo’s Audit content & access feature helps you understand what is stored in Drive and who can access it.
You can audit a specific folder, a Shared Drive, everything owned by you, or content shared with you. Folgo then generates a ready-to-use Google Sheets report with clear information about your files, folders, structure, permissions, and sharing settings.
The report can include:
- A dashboard overview of your Drive content.
- A detailed list of files and folders.
- A tree view of your folder structure.
- A permissions recap showing who has access.
- An access lookup to see exactly what a user, group, domain, or public link can access.
How to check Google Drive access with Folgo
Here is the simple version:
- Install and open Folgo from Google Drive.
- Select Audit content & access.
- Choose what you want to audit, such as a folder, Shared Drive, or your full account.
- Enable List file permissions to include access details.
- Run the audit and open the Google Sheets report once it is ready.
Folgo runs the audit in the background. You can close Google Drive or your browser while the process continues. When the report is ready, you receive an email notification with a link to the results.
For a full step-by-step tutorial, read our Help Center guide on auditing Google Drive content and permissions with Folgo.
From visibility to action
Seeing who has access is only the first step. Once the audit report is ready, you can review the results, filter external domains, identify public links, and decide which permissions should be updated or removed.
With Folgo, you can also take action from the audit results. This helps you move from analysis to cleanup more quickly, especially when you need to remove unwanted or outdated access from many files.
Easy to use
Folgo is fully integrated with Google Drive and Google Workspace. There is no external platform to set up, no complex configuration, and no need to move your files to a third-party workspace.
You can launch the audit from Google Drive, let Folgo process the data in the background, and review the results in Google Sheets. This makes the feature easy to use for individuals, teams, and Google Workspace admins.
Safe and secure for your data
Folgo only uses the permissions needed to run the actions you choose. Your data is not sold, used for advertising, or shared with third parties. Because Folgo works within your Google environment, it gives you a secure and practical way to review access, improve visibility, and manage Drive permissions more confidently.
Read our Privacy Policy page for more information.
Free trial and pricing
Folgo is free to try for 30 days. During the free trial, you can fully test the Audit feature without restrictions and explore other powerful Google Drive management tools.
Depending on your needs, you can choose a Folgo plan adapted to your usage level. Folgo offers flexible plans designed for teams and organizations of all sizes. For heavier usage or specific requirements, please contact the Folgo team at support@folgo.app.
Conclusion
Keeping track of who has access to your Google Drive files and folders is no longer optional, it’s essential for both security and visibility. Without regular audits, sensitive information can easily be over-shared, forgotten, or left accessible to the wrong people.
Folgo’s Audit feature gives you instant clarity: it shows you exactly what’s shared, with whom, and at what level of access. More importantly, it empowers you to quickly fix risky permissions before they become a problem.
Install Folgo and give it a try! Audit is just one of many powerful features Folgo offers to help you manage Google Drive at scale. Feel free to explore Folgo's features and see how it helps your organisation!