How To Transfer Ownership of a File in Google Drive.

Last month, I was wrapping up a freelance project I led for several months. All the project-related documents, reports, and shared resources were stored in my Google Drive. However, since the project was about to end, I decided to share all the related files with my client so she could take care of it further. 

Simply giving her an editing option wasn't enough, I need to give her full ownership of the files. That's when I discovered how to transfer ownership of files in Google Drive.

Transfer Ownership of a File in Google Drive.

Transferring Ownership ensures that the new person has full control over files just like you. Here's how you can do it step-by-step using your personal Google account.

Step 1: Open Google Drive and locate the file.

Go to drive.google.com in any browser where you're signed into your personal Google account. Navigate through your folders or use the search bar to find the specific file you want to transfer.

Step 2: Right-click the file and choose "Share."

Once you’ve found the file, right-click on it. From the context menu that appears, click on the “Share” option. This will open a sharing settings dialog where you manage access and permissions.

Step 3: Add the person you want to make the new owner

If the intended new owner isn’t already listed, type their email address in the “Add people and groups” box at the top. Set any type of access you want (Viewer, Commenter, or Editor) and give a meaningful message in the message box. Then click “Send” to share the file with them. Make sure you’re entering a valid Google account email.

Step 4: Change their role to ‘Owner’

After the person has been added (or if they were already there), locate their name under the “People with access” section. Click the drop-down arrow next to their current role (e.g., Editor) and choose “Transfer ownership.”

Step 5: Confirm the transfer

A pop-up will appear with a warning saying that "You'll be the owner until this person accepts ownership."Click on the Send Invitation button in the pop-up, and the user will get an email to accept the ownership of the file.

Note: Once the ownership is transferred to the new user, you will still hold Editor access until the new owner removes you or makes changes to your access. You won't be able to revert the ownership again.

Step 6: Email Sent to New Owner.

The new Owner will receive an email invite to accept ownership of the shared file. The user can Accept or Decline the request based on their choice. Once accepted, complete ownership will transfer to new user.

Note: In personal (free) Google accounts, you cannot directly transfer ownership of a folder. Google only allows the transfer of ownership of individual files, not folders. But there are many alternative ways to transfer ownership of an entire folder and its content that we are going to learn in the next part.

Transfer Ownership of Entire Folder in Google Drive.

If you are using a free personal Google account, then you can transfer ownership of the folder to any other user, but even after that, you will still own the subfolder and files within it. There is no direct approach to transfer the ownership of the entire folder with its content in the free version of the Google account, but you get this option in the premium version of Google Workspace.

Oh, does it mean that I need to pay a premium to use this feature? Well, not really, there are a few alternative methods that we can use to achieve our goal. Let's learn a few of them here.

Method 1: Transfer Ownership Manually.

Step 1: Transfer Ownership of the Folder.

In this method, you need to transfer ownership twice to the new user. First, you have to transfer the ownership of the Folder by following the same steps that we have performed above for a single file.

Step 2: Transfer Ownership of all SubFiles.

Once the folder ownership is transferred to the new user, you can open the folder and check that you are still the owner of the entire content present in it. Press Ctrl + A from your keyboard to select files at once and repeat the first step to transfer ownership of all the selected files in one go.

Step 3: The New Owner receives an email.

The new owner with whom you want to share all the files will receive an email with a list of files and a Respond button, which will redirect the user to Google Drive to review and accept the ownership of the files.

Step 4: Accept Ownership of all shared Files.

When the new owner opens the folder, they can still see your name as the owner of the files present inside. The user will get two options: review each file one by one and accept the ownership, or select all entire files altogether and accept the ownership of all the files. Ask the new owner to follow the steps shown below:

To accept ownership, press Ctrl+A to select the file and click on the Share+ icon. You will get a pop-up with an "Accept Ownership?" button next to your User ID.

Note: If the folder contains another subfolder with more files inside it, then you need to repeat the same steps 1 and 2 again to share the ownership of the files present in subfolders. You also need to repeat the same steps if more files get added inside that folder.

If you use Google Workspace, you can instead move files into a Shared Drive, where ownership belongs to the team. The above methods are good if you are handling everything by yourself.