How do shortcuts work when migrating documents from on prem file server to shared drives?

[b_gorsky1]

I am curious to know how the relatively new Shortcuts in Drive function works when we upload files/folders from our on-premise file server to Google Shared Drives. Does Drive scan for duplicated and automatically create shortcuts? If so, what criteria does it use to confirm that a file is truly a duplicate and not a different version of the same file?

For example, we have a folder that contains over 100 sub-folders. It is not uncommon for a file that is named the same to be in multiple sub-folders. However, there can be differences in the file content such as text being highlighted or not. We want to retain all of these variations and I am concerned that Google may replace many instances of a file with the same name with shortcuts, effectively causing us to lose different versions of the same file that we need to keep in specific folders.

I know that Drive automatically replaced duplicated files with shortcuts when they introduced the shortcuts feature. 

[newman]

It will not automatically create shortcuts for you.  You can have multiple files/folders with the same name they would be moved over and no shortcuts would be made.  Shortcuts are user initiated when a file could live in multiple locations.  They make a shortcut to the original file in another location. 

[b_gorsky1]

@newman Thank you for the info.

Just curious as to whether or not that is based on experience, testing or from some documentation you were able to locate? I guess my confusion over shortcuts being automatically created comes from Google's actions earlier this year that automatically created shortcuts when it found multiple copies of the same file.

I am starting to think though that that may have been a one time thing that they had to do to fully implement the shortcuts functionality?

And for clarification, I am referring to this:

In our original announcement, we mentioned that we would be migrating existing files in multiple locations to shortcuts. We’d like to share more details on these plans: 

• We will start this migration some time in 2021. We’ll announce the migration on the G Suite Updates blog and with an in-product notification banner at least 2 weeks before it starts. 
• The migration will remove all but one location of files that currently are in multiple locations, and will replace the removed files with shortcuts. 
• The migration heuristics will be based primarily on original ownership, but will also take signals about access and activity on other parent folders into account, to ensure the least possible disruption for collaboration.  
• File access and ownership will not be impacted. 
• The migration will be automatic and won’t require manual work from users or admins. 

[cryptochrome]

I think the automatic creation of shortcuts only happens within the context of Google Drive itself, e.g. if you copy a file from one folder to another. It's possible that if you move/copy files from outside of Drive into Drive, this logic will not apply, because in that case, Google will see it as newly created files, not as copied files. 

I could be wrong though, just an educated guess. 

Best way to test this is to copy 2-3 files from your local hard drive to multiple Google Drive folders. Then you will see whether Drive will create shortcuts. 

[b_gorsky1]

@cryptochrome That makes sense. I have been running some tests myself with PDF's and MS Office docs. So far, after a few days, it appears they are remaining as they were uploaded and the duplicates aren't creating shortcuts.

[cryptochrome]

Yep, just what I thought. I just tested this. I copied the same file from my local hard drive into three different Google Drive folders. None were created as shortcuts and Google treats them as individual copies. 

[cryptochrome]

Even when copying from one Google Drive folder to another (using Google Drive Desktop) doesn't create shortcuts. Which leads me to think this whole shortcut thing only really applies to Google's native files (e.g. Docs, Sheets, etc.). 

[newman]

Originally in Drive you had the ability to store files in multiple locations.  I create a doc and put it in both the marketing and the sales folder.  Google got rid of this functionality.  Every file that was in multiple locations got changed to a shortcut automatically.  When they mention doing it automatically they mean these types of individual files living in multiple locations.  Not files with the same folders with the same name.

I will say definitely test first.  We recently did a migration from drive to drive and the actual shortcuts themselves weren't moved and no shortcuts were created. 

[b_gorsky1 · Accepted solution]

My testing confirms that my original concern is unwarranted. Everything I've uploaded, has remained as is and no shortcuts have been created. I had also opened a ticket with Google Support and was told the following:

After reviewing the information provided previously, I see you have uploaded multiple copies of the same file, even-though they have the same name these files are not the same if you check the URL of each copy you will see that they have a different ID. Having this into consideration the answer to your question "will Drive replace all but one of them with shortcuts automatically?" the answer is, no because they are not the same file.