Google Takeout this is great news

[Rick2025]

Dear EDU Admin,

We are writing to inform you that the Takeout Transfer your content tool, which allows students and staff to transfer Drive and Gmail files to another Google account, will no longer support shared-with-me file exports. The change will begin rolling out starting early 2024.

This update will give you more control over the data being exported from your institution, ensure your users are exporting only the most relevant information, and improve reliability of the tool.

What does this mean for your institution?

Once the change is live, users will no longer be able to transfer copies of documents that are shared with them from Drive using the Takeout Transfer your content tool. If users need to export files shared with them, they will need to make a copy of those shared files in their personal Drive account.

If enabled in Admin Console, students and staff are still able to copy other Gmail and Drive data to another Google account, specifically:

• Gmail: Users can copy and transfer their email (not contacts, chats, or tasks).
• Drive: Users can transfer copies of documents and folders they own in My Drive.

[Kim_Nilsson]

Sorry, I missed you had already posted about this.

Removing my post.

[Kim_Nilsson]

This is actually great as it as always a dumb idea to include other people's files in the Takeout.

[icrew]

Someone on another list pointed out a place where this could be problematic, though.

Imagine a (highly simplified but real-world*) folder tree where:

UserA owns Folder1

UserB owns Folder2 within Folder1

UserA owns Folder3 within Folder2

And Users A, B, C, D, E, and F all own a pile of files scattered across all 3 folders. 

What happens with this folder hierarchy when UserA does a Takeout Transfer?

Cheers,

Ian

*-Or in the real world, what happens with something like this structure that’s 6-8 levels deep and has 10,000+ files in it? This could easily happen in the case of a Professor plus their research group, for example.  What happens when the professor moves to another institution?

[Kim_Nilsson]

Absolutely nothing happens!

Simply because Takeout Transfer isn't and never was a Transfer. It is a copy!

But, when User A, B, C, D, E or F leaves and is deleted, all their content will be deleted.

This is why all proper long-time collaborative work should be stored in a Shared Drive.