How to Bulk Remove Sharing Permissions in Google Drive

Google Drive makes it easy to share files. Removing that access later — especially across many files at once — is a different story.

There's no native "remove all sharing permissions" button in Google Drive. If you want to revoke access from multiple files, the built-in tools require you to open each file, find the sharing panel, and remove people one by one. For a handful of files that's manageable. For dozens or hundreds, it's not.

This is the problem most people run into when they leave a job, finish a client project, do a security cleanup, or realize they've been more generous with sharing access than they intended.

Here are your options.

How to Bulk Remove Sharing Permissions

Option 1: Use Overdrive for True Bulk Control

Overdrive is built specifically for this. It scans your entire Google Drive and surfaces every file with active sharing permissions — showing you who has access, what level of access they have, and whether files are shared via link or directly with specific people. You can then select multiple files and revoke permissions in bulk, without opening each file individually.

This is the only practical option if you're dealing with more than a small number of files, or if you're not sure which files are shared in the first place.

Option 2: Batch-Select and Edit in Google Drive

Google Drive does allow a limited form of batch editing for permissions:

Open Google Drive
Select multiple files by holding Cmd (Mac) or Ctrl (Windows) while clicking, or use Shift+click to select a range
Right-click the selection and choose Share
The sharing panel opens — but note: it shows a combined view and changes you make here apply to all selected files
Remove specific people or change the general access setting
Click Save

There are limitations to this approach. It only works well when you know exactly which files you want to change and they're visible in the same folder view. It doesn't help you find shared files scattered across your Drive, and it can't easily target all files shared with a specific person across different folders.

Option 3: Work Folder by Folder

If your files are organized and you want to remove permissions from everything inside a specific folder:

Open the folder in Google Drive
Select all files with Cmd+A or Ctrl+A
Right-click and choose Share
Remove the people or links you want to revoke
Confirm the changes apply to all selected items

This is reasonable for targeted cleanup when your files are well-organized, but falls apart if sharing permissions are spread across many folders.

When Bulk Removal Is Most Useful

A few situations where this comes up regularly:

Leaving a job. Before you lose access to your own account, you may want to remove personal files from shared workspaces, or verify that your personal Drive doesn't contain anything you've left open to former colleagues.

Ending a client engagement. Files shared with a client during a project don't automatically become private when the project ends. Bulk removal lets you close that access cleanly.

Post-security audit. After reviewing who has access across your Drive, bulk removal is how you act on what you find — revoking many permissions efficiently rather than file by file.

Cleaning up "anyone with the link" shares. If you've sent out shareable links over time, many files may be set to public-ish access without you remembering. Finding and closing all of those at once is a form of bulk removal.

What to Know Before You Remove Permissions

Removing access is immediate. The moment you revoke access, the person can no longer open the file. There's no grace period.

People aren't notified. Google Drive doesn't send an email when access is removed. If the removal might be unexpected, it's worth a heads-up outside of Drive.

Link sharing is separate from people sharing. If a file is set to "anyone with the link," removing a named person's access doesn't close the link. You need to explicitly change General Access to "Restricted" to close public link access.

You can only remove access to files you own or have editor access to. For files owned by someone else, you can remove yourself but not others.