How to access shared drives in iOS Files app?

[leonceaklin]

I‘d like to open files from Google Drive in an iOS app that opens the default iOS file browsing dialog to select a file. However I only see the files stored in „My Drive“. Is there a way to access shared drives too, like in OneDrive, and Google Drive for desktop for example?

[JasonTM1 · Accepted solution]

Shortcuts in your My Drive pointing to folders in Shared Drives will work. The obvious downside is you cannot create a shortcut to the root of your Shared Drive. It must point to a folder located in the root or below.

[jensbegemann]

Thank you very much for this workaround. Unfortunately, I don’t think this is a practical solution for most people: Let's say I use four shared drives regularly (e.g. „Projects“, „Marketing“, „Research“ and „Finance“). If I could create shortcuts to these shared drives, this would be fine, because the shared drives change rarely and I rarely become a member of a new one. However there are many folders inside these shared drives (e.g. 10-20 on the first level), these may be renamed or removed from time to time or new ones are added (e.g. „Project 1“, „Project 2“, etc.). Therefore I think (like others have posted) a much better solution would be: When I tap „Google Drive“ in the „Files“ app, it shows a list with „My Drive“ and all of my shared drives below that.

[leonceaklin]

Thank you for the advice. It's not ideal but it works. I think the drive team should move "My Drive" into a subfolder and make it available next to a "Shared drives" and "Shared with me" in order to make it work the same way as it works on macOS.

[JasonTM1]

Agreed. The Drive app should provide the iOS Files service a view of your data one level higher than it does now. I haven't thought through all of the ramifications but it sounds good.

Placing these shortcuts to Shared Drive folders in a single folder can help users keep them organized. If someone needed more than a handful I could see them cluttering up the root of their My Drive.

[R-intra]

Same Problem.... But then when working on files, and trying to save it aks to save as a duplicate. I use Concepts for drawings and it is a nightmare...

What about creating a sub-folder within each shared drive and then place all folders there? For example: Shared drive: Projects> Folder: All Projects> folders for Project A, B, C, etc.. does it work if we create a shortcut to the Folder 'All Projects'? in this way we have only 1 shortcut for each shared drive... would it work???  Google should find a way to make it work normally, like One Drive does.  

[Artfennell]

I’ve just bought an iPad Pro and trying to map my Shared Drives to it. So I understand the above thread but can’t seem to create shortcuts from Shared Drives on the iPad? I can access Shared Drives on the iPad via Chrome browser but can’t find any dropdown menu which is usually where the ‘create shortcut’ command lives. Does that mean I’ve got to create all the shortcuts on a desktop??

[jensbegemann]

Open the Google Drive app => Select a file or folder => Tap More … => Tap Add shortcut to Drive.