Share documents with visitors

If your organization allows, you can invite people who don’t have Google Accounts to collaborate on your Drive files and folders as visitors. You can stop sharing at any time or control if visitors can edit, comment, or find your file.

Share with visitors

Once visitor sharing has been turned on for your organization, you can share documents with non-Google accounts. Visitors can edit, comment on, or view your document for 7 days after they verify their email address. If they must collaborate longer, they can use the link from the original sharing email to verify their identity again. To find which select accounts you can share, contact your administrator.

1. On your computer, log in to your work or school account.
2. Go to Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, or Slides.
3. Click the file you want to share Share .
4. Under "Share with people and groups," enter the email address you want to share with and press Enter.
5. To change what people can do to your doc, on the right, click the Drop arrow Viewer, Commenter, or Editor.
6. Click Send.

File types you can share with a non-Google domain

• Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Sites, Images, PDFs, and Office files
• Folders or subfolders in a shared drive

Remove a non-Google domain user

You can take away a visitor's access at any time.

1. On a computer, log into your work or school account.
2. Go to Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, or Slides.
3. Click on the file that's shared with a visitor.
4. In the top right, click Share Advanced.
5. Next to the visitor, click Remove.
6. Click Save changes  Done.

Collaborate on Drive files as a visitor

When you get an invitation to collaborate on a Google file, you must verify your identity with a PIN. After that, you can collaborate on the shared file or folder for 7 days. If you need to collaborate longer, you can use the link from the original sharing email to verify your identity again.

As a visitor, you can:

• Suggest edits to, comment on, or view shared documents.
• Create files with Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms in folders or subfolders in a shared drive.

Visitors with contributor access can also upload or download files and folders to folders or subfolders in a shared drive.

Important:

• Visitors can't own data or be added as members of a shared drive at the root level.
• Visitors can't upload or create files and folders in My Drive.

Collaborate as a visitor

1. In your email inbox, open the invitation email from your contact.
2. Select Open.
3. In your email inbox, open the verification code email from Google.
4. Copy the verification code.
5. Return to the “Verification” browser tab.
6. In the box provided, enter the verification code.
7. Select Next.

You can now collaborate on the shared Google file or folder. Learn how to add, edit, reply, or delete comments.

Tip: To find the document again, open the email from Google.

Delete your visitor session

You can delete your visitor session at any time. When you delete your visitor session, your name is removed and all your changes and comments are attributed to an unknown user. 

Important: If you delete your visitor session, you'll lose access to files that have been shared with you. To regain access, the files must be shared with you again. 

1. Using the invitation email from your contact, sign in to your visitor session.
2. At the top right, select Your initial.
3. Select Delete visitor session Send.
4. In your email inbox, open the verification code email.
5. Copy the verification code.
6. Return to the “Verification” browser tab.
7. In the box provided, enter the verification code.
8. Select Next the checkbox Delete.

Create a Google Account

To change from a visitor session to a Google Account with the same email address, you must first share documents with visitors. Then, you can either create a Google Account or sign up for Google Workspace. Learn how to delete your visitor session.

Note. You can’t change from a visitor session to a Google Group. If an administrator creates a Google Group using an email address with a visitor session, the visitor session is deleted.

Related resources

• Use comments, action items, and emoji reactions
• Share documents with visitors