Who you share with
Shares go to accounts on the same instance — a colleague, a family member, a club committee — or to everyone holding a link for the things meant to be public. Shares to accounts are managed by name; links are managed by the link itself.
What a share grants
Access comes in levels, and the granter chooses the level:
- Read — see and download; nothing changes.
- Read-write — change, add and remove, within what was shared.
- Upload-only — put things in (a drop box), never see what is there.
A calendar share grants read or read-write on events; an address book share grants read or read-write on contacts; a folder share uses the full ladder above. The granter can change or take back a share at any time; when the last grant on a shared folder goes, its public link stops working with it.
How sharing works in practice
- Folders and files: share from the Files web application — pick the folder, the account, and the level. A shared folder appears in the recipient's drive. The folder can carry a browser-openable link for people without an account.
- Calendars: share from the Calendar web application — the calendar appears in the recipient's own calendar application with the granted level.
- Address books: share from the Contacts web application the same way.
The boundaries
- Sharing requires the right to share: an instance can decide that only certain accounts may share, and a guest account can never re-share what was shared with it.
- A grant a folder already carries is never silently replaced — adding your own grant keeps the others.
- Some grants cannot be changed through the sharing interfaces at all (a delegation of a whole drive, a password-protected link, an expiring rule); these are made in the Files web application and are shown as protected.
Next chapters
The Accounts chapter holds the Shares page; the rest of the manual: