Google Drive: How do I share folders, so that individuals subfolders are not synced?

Question

How to share Google Drive folders and subfolders so that users can decide what to sync to their hard drive?

Answer 1

Google Drive's sync software (the one you install on your computer) only let's you decide which top level folders you want to sync. You cannot not sync subfolders alone.

You can however share folders in a way that allows your users to put them into the root folder directly. This way, they can unselect them individually for syncing.

Say you have the following folder structure

- Project [parent]
-- Planning files [subfolder 1]
-- Execution files [huge subfolder 2]

Instead of sharing the Project folder to a user, do individually share the Planning files and Execution files folder. This way, users can link both directly into their My Drive root folder.

In the sync client they're now top level folders and can be individually deselected.

If you would instead share the Project" folder, a user would need to "split up" the single share, to move e.g. "Execution files out of it. This breaks sharing of the latter for everyone.

By the way, Google Drive apparently seems to be able to have a single folder or file in two or more parent folders. This would also allow for a sharing concept. However, the new Google Drive interface, introduced in 2014 (?) hides this functionaliy. In the old Google Drive, you can use "Move to", then hold CMD/CTRL and selected more than one parent.

Answer 2

Good tip, but this doesn't work very well if your folder structure is like this:

- Projects
-- Project ABC
--- Planning Files
--- Execution Files
-- Project DEF
--- Planning Files
--- Execution Files

A solution might be the hidden feature of adding a folder to multiple parents. You can still do this in the new drive interface by selecting a folder and pressing SHIFT+z. Use that to add all Planning files to a Planning folder.

Answer 3

For those of you who want to sync only a subfolder not the whole folder with thing inside

here are the steps.

1. assuming you downloaded and installed drive.
2. go to you sub-folder you wish to sync to your computer.
3. click once on folder, so it turns blue.
4. press keys Shift then Z
5. a menu will pop up
6. don't choose a place to put since it only syncs main folders (put it in the drive not a folder)
7. on your COMPUTER right click on drive.
8. go to google drive with icon in front of it.
9. choose a the sub-folder you PUT in the DRIVE

reminder when you press Shift and Z it copies the folder, so any changes you do to shortcut folder that's in your DRIVE is updated to the drive on computer and inside sub-folder.