Copying a folder

[anthony_francis]

I am looking for a way to overcome a fairly basic issue.

We use a standard folder taxonomy that we wish to copy to project shared drives.

However, it doesn't seem possible to do this within the web version of drive or via file stream on a windows desktop.

We had attempted to download the folder from the web version as a zip file however, all Google native files get converted to Office-based versions.

Any ideas on how to overcome this?

[ThatMat]

Hi and welcome 🙂

What's the exact issue?

You have google drive folder and would like to drag and drop it into shared drive?

If that's the case then you need to own every file inside, it's easier to get someone with drive admin rights to do this. They only need edit access to be able to move it.
Side note, even they can't use "move" for that. It has to be drag and drop via side tree.

[anthony_francis]

I think this explains it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysWoAae_JCU&t=122s 

[ThatMat]

This is from 2017 and suggest giving access to your domain to some 3rd party app. Not something I would suggest trying.

[anthony_francis]

Any ideas on how to do this within Drive. In an MS world, you would just copy and paste the folder.

[candice]

Hi Anthony,

Following on from what ThatMat was suggesting. Check out this super useful support page Give admin migration rights to a user which will give you more detail.
Dragging and dropping files can affect the owner of the files permission - check out the before you begin moving files and folders to a shared drive section. 

[sinigur]

I second what @candice says.

[sgandia]

If I remember correctly if you want to convert a Google Drive folder to a Shared Drive it goes through a migration process and you need to have permission to do this from an admin.

If you just want to copy and paste from your desktop it should just work. (I do it all the time). You also need the appropriate permission to be able to write into a shared folder.

[anthony_francis]

Sorry guys just to confirm the scenario - 

1. Create a folder in a drive (My Drive or Shared)
2. Create a few folders beneath with some template content (Doc, Sheet and a Slide)
3. Now copy the folder in step 1 to another location with the content intact.

I can only find one way round it with this tool - The Tool copies Google Drive folders including subfolders and files.

[gordon_may]

Anthony, you can do this using a gam script.

I am currently doing mass copies of a folder tree to other locations. The only difference is that mine are empty, but the principle is the same.

[anthony_francis]

Does it work if you have Google native content in the folder?

[gordon_may]

Yes it does. Folders and content. All copied and transferred to new account owner.

[TonyNelson]

Can you share a copy of the GAM script, I have to do this for new students.

[adam_smith]

Sign into Drive as a Super Admin and right click the folder in question, choose Move To. Now you can choose the destination, click the back arrow to go up a directory and navigate to the destination and choose Move Here.

[Jan-Carlos]

Anthony

I have some questions to understand the problem.

What administration level do you have in you console?

What level of permission do you have in the shared drive configuration?

Because i can easily drag and drop from mydrive to shared drive, like in this GIF that i made it:

I'm a Administrator in my console and a Administrator in my shared drive configuration.

[anthony_francis]

I can do all shown in the clip and I can also admin.

Can you copy (not move) the folder with the content with the subfolders copied also?

[Jan-Carlos]

I don't think there's a way to copy and paste a folder natively on GWS.

I believe that you have to download and then reupload the content.

Maybe via API you can copy the folder.

Gam Projetct it's a really nice tool to make actions by command line interface.

https://sites.google.com/jis.edu.bn/gam-commands/services/drive#h.rq012n6949zx

Maybe this help you out.

[paul_lees · Accepted solution]

I would suggest looking at something like Patronum. With Patronum you can set up a policy for all users of a specific project, and give them a copy of an existing folder structure.

[CloudGuardians]

Let me explain the specifics on this:

 - Folders on Google Drive are actually labels applied to files "inside" them. That's why folders cannot be copied per se. So, in order to copy a folder and all its content the following needs to happen (using the Drive API):

 - Get all the IDs of all the folders

 - Get all the IDs of all the files

 - Get all the sharing settings for all the files

 - Get all the sharing settings for all the folders

 - Get all the names for all the files and folders

 - Get all the comments from files (and the information about the file ID)

 - Get the relation between files and folder (to understand which files are "inside" each folder)

 - Create new copies of the files, with the the same name (for this a table matching the IDs of the original files and the new ones would have to be read)

 - Create copies of the original comments and assign them to the corresponding new file

 - Apply the same sharing settings

 - Create copies of folders

 - Apply the new folders to the corresponding files

 - Apply the sharing settings to the folders (remember that in Drive files can have direct sharing permission or inherited - from folders - sharing permissions)

 - ... (sorry for going to deep...) 😄

Your real options are:

 - Use GAM (GAMADV-XTD3, with shared drives support)

 - Use a 3rd-Party to do all of this API calls for you

 - Use a 3rd-Party migration service that preserves the format of Google files

 - If you want to do it the hard way - manually -, create a copy of the entire parent folder, using Drive FS. All the non-Google files will be copied. After that go folder by folder and select all the files in Google formats at once (you can filter them using the search bar) and right-click and make a copy. Then move the copy to the corresponding new folder. If the new folder belongs to a different user you'll need to share the files with that user and then make the mass copy from that user's account. After that use a Batch rename tool on Windows to remove the "Copy of" part of the copied files. And that's more or less it... 

 - Finally, I can suggest a more creative approach (that you should test in advance to better understand):

   - Delete the user that owns the original folder structure;

   - While deleting the user choose to transfer ownership of the files to another user

   - After the transfer is completed and the user is deleted you can restore the deleted user and recover the files. At that point you would have two copies of the same folder structure. You could then move one of the copies to a shared drive, if that's what you want.

If all of this sounds too complicated you can reach me directly and I'll see if we can do this for you.

[gordon_may]

As I mentioned above, gam can do all of this very easily (one command). Deleting and restoring users could have other undesirable consequences.

[anthony_francis]

Thank you for everyone's contributions, GAM does seem the tool. But I am speaking to Patronum to see if they can help.

Thanks again 🙌 

[Alex_Ivanov]

I can't understand why did nobody say about Apps Script? GAM or Apps Script are very flexible tools.

[CalebSpring]

GAM and Apps Scripts are flexible but require basic coding and/or command line skills to use. Some admins including myself are more GUI admins and don't have anyone one to do the coding for us. I have used GAM and GAMX but have relied heavily on the community and users such as @brian_kim that have extensive knowledge of GAM.

[Alex_Ivanov]

OK. I see.