Document Sharing

Table of Contents

Sharing your spreadsheet

Google Sheets is great for making edits on the same document in real-time with your team. These steps will show you how to share your document with one or more collaborators. These steps are pretty universal across google docs including sheets, docs, slides, etc.

1. By default, you will be the only person who can access your documents unless you change the sharing settings. After you share the document as outlined in the below steps or change the link access settings, you can see who else is working in a document with you by looking in the top right corner of the document for another person’s icon (example circled in green below).

Note: If the person’s icon is in bold colors, that means they are active in the document at that moment. If the colors are faded, that means they have the document open, but haven’t been active for some time (it likely means they have it open in a tab they’re not currently looking at).

2. To share your document, click the “Share” button in the very top right corner of your spreadsheet (circled in green below). This will open the document sharing menu.

Note: The “Share” button has a lock icon when you are the only person with access to the document and a person icon (with variations) when you have shared the document with others.

3. In the popup, type the email address of the first person that you want to share the document with into the “Add people, groups, and calendar events” bar (circled in green below).

Note: Wherever possible, make sure to share your document with the other person’s google account (i.e. gmail) that they can use to view and edit your document. If you share a document with a non-google account, then anyone with that access link can open the document.

4. After typing the email address(es) you’re sharing the document with, you have the option to write a message to be sent with your document (circled in green below).

5. Before sending, be aware of two other important settings. The first is the level of access you want the people to have to edit your document. Click the “Editor” button to the right of the email(s) (circled in green below). This will open up a dropdown with three options:

- Editor: This is the highest level of access you can give. Anyone with editor access will have the same level of access as you and they will be able to add, change, and delete anything in your document.
- Commenter: This middle level of access. Anyone with commenter access will be able to see your document in real time, but they will not be able to add, edit, or delete anything in the document. They are only allowed to add comments to your document. It will be up to you to resolve their comments as you see fit.
- Viewer: This is the lowest level of access that you can give. Anyone with viewer access will be able to see your document and view updates in real time, but they will not be able to edit, comment, or delete anything in your document.

Select the level of access that you want to give to the people you’re sharing the document with. You can always change this later.

6. The second setting to be aware of before sharing is the “Notify people” checkbox (circled in green below) immediately below the place where you added emails. This button is checked by default which means it will send an automatic email to the person/people you’re adding to your document. The email will include a link to the document and your message (if you added one). You can choose to uncheck this box if you do not want to send an email to the person/people you’re sharing the document with.

- Note: If you don’t select “Notify people” then the only way the people you added to the document will be able to find it is by going to the”Shared with me” folder in their google drive.
- Recommendation: I almost always leave “Notify people” checked so that others have the convenient email with the document link and know that I added them to the document, but it is up to you if you check it or not.

7. Now, you’re ready to share your document! Click “Send” in the bottom right corner and you’re done!

Link sharing

In some cases, you’ll want to share your document publicly or with a large group of people where it doesn’t make sense to individually add each person to the document. In these cases, it’s helpful to know how to change the link sharing settings.

1. To share your document, click the “Share” button in the very top right corner of your spreadsheet (circled in blue below). This will open the document sharing menu.

Note: The “Share” button has a lock icon when you are the only person with access to the document and a person icon (with variations) when you have shared the document with others.

2. Click “Copy Link” (circled in green below) in the bottom right corner of this popup menu.

3. When you click “Copy link” the link to the document will be copied to your computer’s clipboard. You should see a tiny black box appear near the button that says “Link copied.”

Note: Sharing the link with someone else won’t automatically give them access to the document unless you’ve also changed the link access settings which I will explain in the next step, or if that person has already been shared on the document.

4. By default, the link access will be set to “Restricted” which means that only people who you share the document with will be able to access it. If you want the link to be available publicly, click where it says “Restricted” (circled in green below) and then select “Anyone with the link” (circled in blue below) from the dropdown.

5. Before you send the document link out, you may want to change the level of access that “anyone with the link” will be able to have in your document.

Note: You can give specific people higher access than link sharing will give by following the document sharing steps above. For example, you may want to have a few people who can edit the document and turn on public list sharing to “viewer” access, so that anyone with the link can see your document but only you and the members of your team can edit it.

The level of access the link gives will be set to “Viewer” by default. If you want to change the level of access that people with the link have, click where it says “Viewer” (circled in green below) and select the appropriate level of access below.

- Editor: This is the highest level of access you can give. Anyone with editor access will have the same level of access as you and they will be able to add, change, and delete anything in your document.
- Commenter: This middle level of access. Anyone with commenter access will be able to see your document in real time, but they will not be able to add, edit, or delete anything in the document. They are only allowed to add comments to your document. It will be up to you to resolve their comments as you see fit.
- Viewer: This is the lowest level of access that you can give. Anyone with viewer access will be able to see your document and view updates in real time, but they will not be able to edit, comment, or delete anything in your document.

6. When you’ve selected the level of access you want the link to give, click “Done” in the bottom right corner (circled in green below). Then you have successfully made the link public!

Note: You can always follow these steps later to change the link back to restricted (only accessible to you and people you’ve individually added to the document) later if you want.

Changing someone’s level of access

It’s good to know how to remove or change someone’s level of access between editor, commenter, and viewer so you can remove or change access as necessary. In order to change someone’s access they must already be shared on the document.

1. Start by clicking “Share” in the top right corner of the document (circled in green below).

2. Click the button to the right of the person whose access you want to change (circled in green below). This will either say editor, commenter, or viewer, depending on the access they have now.

3. From the dropdown, select the new level of access that you would like this person to have from the options:

- Editor: This is the highest level of access you can give. Anyone with editor access will have the same level of access as you and they will be able to add, change, and delete anything in your document.
- Commenter: This middle level of access. Anyone with commenter access will be able to see your document in real time, but they will not be able to add, edit, or delete anything in the document. They are only allowed to add comments to your document. It will be up to you to resolve their comments as you see fit.
- Viewer: This is the lowest level of access that you can give. Anyone with viewer access will be able to see your document and view updates in real time, but they will not be able to edit, comment, or delete anything in your document.
- Transfer ownership: This option isn’t used too often. It will make that person the new owner of the document instead of you. The owner generally has the highest level of access, so this is most commonly seen when someone is leaving an organization and sharing their documents with someone else on a team. Edit access also works fine in most cases for that too, so no need to worry too much about this transfer ownership option.
- Remove: Remove this person from the document. They will no longer be able to access, view, or edit the document. (As long as public link sharing is off)

4. After you’ve selected the appropriate access level, click “save” (circled in green below). Then you’re done and have successfully changed someone’s level of access!

Note: The other person may need to refresh their screen to see the changes take effect.

Additional sharing & privacy settings

There are a few lesser-known settings that you can use to fine-tune the access that other people have to your document. In most cases, you won’t need to change these settings, but they can be helpful in specific situations where you want to restrict the access people have to your spreadsheet.

1. Start by clicking “Share” in the top right corner of the document (circled in green below).

2. Then, click the gear icon in the top right corner of the popup menu (circled in green below).

3. This will open the share with people settings. Both settings are checked by default, but you can toggle them off if you want to tighten other people’s access to your document. Here’s a quick explainer on what each of the options do:

- Editors can change permissions and share: When this is checked, anyone who has edit access to the document will be able to share the document with other people. They will also be able to change other people’s level of access. For example, if this box is checked and you shared a spreadsheet with Abby and Ben as editors, Abby would be able to change Ben’s access from editor to viewer or commenter, or remove him altogether.

When this box is not checked, you will be the only person who can share the document with others* and change the level of access that other people have to make changes in your document. (*Assuming that public link sharing is off)

Viewers and commenters can see the option to download, print, and copy: When this is checked, people with the viewer or commenter level of access will be able to download, print, and copy the data in your spreadsheet. If you’re sharing your spreadsheet with people you trust or you’re only sharing non-sensitive data, then it’s usually fine to leave this checked.

When this box is not checked, people with viewer or commenter access to your document can view and/or comment in the document itself, but (other than taking a screenshot) they won’t be able to access the data outside the spreadsheet at all.

4. If you uncheck either of the boxes, click the back arrow in the top left of the popup menu, then click “Done” (circled in green below). Then you’re done!

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