How to Turn On Link Sharing in Google Drive (and Turn It Off Again)

By the end of this, the five people on the Hillcrest HOA board can open our Spring 2026 Price List from one link in an email. They can read it, but they can’t change a single number. And once they vote, I switch the link off in about ten seconds.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to turn on link sharing in Google Drive the way I did it for Bluebird Landscaping: open the Share dialog, change General access, pick a role, and copy the link. Then I’ll check that it works, cover the phone apps, and turn the link off again.

What you need before you start

I ran all of this on October 24, 2026, in the Bluebird Landscaping demo account. It’s a personal Gmail account, which matters for one menu later. Here’s the short list:

• A file you own or can edit. Mine was Spring 2026 Price List.pdf in the Bluebird Landscaping folder.
• Google Drive open in a browser on a computer (phone steps come later).
• A rough idea of who should see it. A link works for anyone who has it, so I only use it for files I’d be fine seeing forwarded.

If you’d rather send the file to a few named people instead, adding their emails is the safer route. I explain how that compares in personal Drive versus Google Workspace, since work accounts get a few extra controls.

Set up the link for the HOA board

These four steps take less than a minute. I’ll walk through what each screen looks like, because the names Google uses aren’t obvious the first time.

Open the Share dialog for the file

In Drive, I opened My Drive > Bluebird Landscaping and right-clicked the price list. Pointing at Share opens a small submenu with Share and Copy link. I clicked Share. The keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+A does the same thing once the file is selected.

The dialog shows who already has access. On a new file, that’s just you as Owner, and General access says Restricted, meaning only people with access can open it with the link.

Switch General access to Anyone with the link

This is the actual link sharing switch. I clicked the Restricted dropdown under General access and picked Anyone with the link.

On my personal account, those were the only two choices. If you sign in with a work or school account, you may also see your organization’s name there, and the options depend on the account type.

Choose what link holders can do

Right after the switch, Drive showed “Access updated” and a role dropdown appeared on the right. It starts on Viewer. I left it there for the board.

• Viewer: can open and read the file.
• Commenter: can also leave comments and suggestions.
• Editor: can change the file and, by default, share it further.

Viewers can still download a PDF unless you change that in Settings. I covered that switch in turning off the download option.

Copy the link and send it

I clicked Copy link, saw the “Link copied” message, and clicked Done. Then I pasted it into my email to the HOA board. The same link works in a text or chat, too, like sending a Drive link on WhatsApp.

Check that the link opens for the board

Before hitting send, I like to test the link the way a board member would see it. Paste it into a private browser window where you’re not signed in. The PDF should open, and you shouldn’t see an edit option.

If you get a request access screen instead, General access is still Restricted. Go back to the Share dialog and look again. That screen is what people hit in the Google Drive request access flow.

One more thing worth knowing: people who open the file without signing in show up as anonymous animals, so you won’t always see who’s viewing.

Share a Drive link from your phone

I didn’t take screenshots on a phone for this one, so these steps come straight from Google’s Drive Help. On Android, iPhone, and iPad they’re nearly identical:

1. Open the Google Drive app and select the file.
2. Tap Share.
3. Under General access, tap Change.
4. Select Anyone with the link and pick Viewer, Commenter, or Editor.
5. Tap Copy link, then Back, and paste it where you need it.

Want to know whether a link someone sent you is safe to tap? I wrote about when a Drive link can be dangerous.

Turn the link off when the vote is done

After the board voted, nobody else needed that price list. Turning link sharing off doesn’t delete anything. It just stops the link from working for people you didn’t add by name.

Turn off link sharing on a computer

1. Right-click the file and click Share.
2. Under General access, click the dropdown and select Restricted.
3. Click Done.

Drive showed “Access updated” again. Restricted also overrides access inherited from a parent folder. For a whole folder, see how to unshare a folder in Drive.

Remove one person instead

If you added someone by email, open Share, click the Down arrow next to their name, choose Remove access, and click Save. Everyone else keeps their access.

Turn it off on Android or iPhone

In the Drive app, select the file and tap Manage access. Under General access, tap Change, tap the current audience, and choose Restricted. To remove a person, tap them and then Remove.

Stop editors from re-sharing

If you gave the link Editor access, editors can change permissions by default. In the Share dialog, click Settings, uncheck Editors can change permissions and share, and click Done. Editors of a parent folder can still share that folder, though.

When Anyone with the link is missing

On a personal Gmail account, you’ll always get Restricted and Anyone with the link. On a Google Workspace account, your admin can stop you from sharing outside the organization, so the option may be missing or limited.

There’s no setting you can flip to get around that. Ask your admin, or ask them to share the file. If someone sent you a link you can’t open, the same goes for the file owner.

A few more Drive guides that pair well with this one:

• saving a web link to Google Drive
• seeing who has viewed a Google Doc
• fixing “unable to access document”
• removing shared files from your Drive

Questions about this setup