Allow sharing to non-Google users with visitor sharing

Supported editions for this feature: Business Standard and Business Plus; Enterprise; Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, Teaching and Learning Upgrade, and Education Plus; Nonprofits; G Suite Basic and G Suite Business; Essentials.  Compare your edition

With visitor sharing, you can let your users invite users without a Google Account to collaborate on files and folders. Visitors use a PIN to verify their identity. You can allow visitor sharing with anyone or only visitors in trusted domains that you specify. You can always review who has access to your organization's files and folders.

• How visitor sharing works
• When visitor sharing is turned on
• Turn on visitor sharing
• Upgrade a visitor session to a Google Workspace account
• How a visitor upgrades to a Google Account
• Known issues and limitations

How visitor sharing works

Users share with visitors in the same way that they share with Google users. Visitors get an email invitation to collaborate and a PIN to verify their identity. They can edit, comment on, or view an item for 7 days after they verify their identity. If the visitor needs to collaborate longer than 7 days, they can use the original link to verify their identity again.

Important: Users with Google Workspace Business Starter or Frontline accounts can share files up to 5 times each calendar month with non-Google accounts. Each time is defined as sharing one document with one visitor.

When visitor sharing is turned on

• Visitors can use Drive on the web to view, comment on, suggest edits to, and directly edit files and folders that are shared with them. For details on what can be shared, see Share documents with visitors.
• Your users can share files and folders in shared drives with visitors. Visitors can create files and upload files within the folders shared with them. They can't be added as members of the shared drive.
• If a visitor has has edit access to a file, they can share the file with another Google user but not with another visitor.
• Visitors can’t access documents in downloaded clients, including Google Drive for desktop, or on mobile.
• Visitors can delete their session, which removes their name from the document history and any comments they made.
• Sessions in a shared file can be seen and changed or their access can be revoked, just like any other collaborator

Turn on visitor sharing

1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

   Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).

2. In the Admin console, go to Menu  AppsGoogle WorkspaceDrive and Docs.
3. Click Sharing settingsSharing options.
4. To apply the setting to everyone, leave the top organizational unit selected. Otherwise, select a child organizational unit or a configuration group.
5. Choose an option:

   To allow visitor sharing only to trusted domains:

   1. Add those domains to your organization’s trusted domains list, if they aren’t there already. For details, go to Allow external sharing with only trusted domains.
   2. Follow the instructions to Restrict sharing to certain domains. Make sure to check the Allow users or shared drives in your organization to share items with people outside your organization who aren't using a Google account box.

      Known issue: You can safely ignore the "Incompatible with whitelisted domains" message. Your users can still share with people in the trusted domain.

   To allow visitor sharing to anyone:

   1. Select On.
   2. (Optional) To warn users who share outside of your organization, check the Warn when files owned by users or shared drives in your organization are shared outside of your organization box.
   3. Check the Allow users or shared drives in your organization to share items with people outside your organization who aren't using a Google account box.
   4. Check the When sharing outside of your organization is allowed, users in your organization can make files and published web content visible to anyone with the link box.
6. For Access Checker, select Recipients only, suggested target audience, or public (no Google account required).
7. Click Save. If you configured an organizational unit or group, you might be able to either Inherit or Override a parent organizational unit, or Unset a group.

Upgrade a visitor session to a Google Workspace account

As an admin, you can upgrade a user’s visitor session to a Google Workspace account by creating a Google Workspace account with the same email address as the visitor session. Upgrading to a Google Workspace account retains the visitor session's collaboration history, including document comments and edits. For more information, go to Options for adding users.

How a visitor upgrades to a Google Account

To upgrade from a visitor session to a Google Account with the same email address, a visitor must first delete their visitor session. Then, they can either create a Google Account or sign up for Google Workspace.

Known issues and limitations

• Some sites that use a Google sign-in might show the visitor’s account in the account switcher. However, even if they’re signed in, visitors can only access Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Sites.
• There are limits on the number of visitors that you can share a file or folder with over a period of time. If a user reaches the visitor-sharing limit, they get a notice with details on when they can start sharing with visitors again.
• When sharing a folder in a shared drive with a visitor account, the highest permission the visitor can be given is contributor access. They can’t access the root folder of a shared drive.
• Visitors can't be added to a group in Google Groups or edit in Sites. However, they can be Published Viewers of a site.
• If you restrict sharing with personal Google Accounts in your organization, visitor sharing is also restricted. If you (or one of your users) try to share with these accounts, you'll get an error message.
• A visitor can't download folders.

Related topics

• Share documents with visitors
• Set Drive users' sharing permissions