Fix Google Drive Error: Shared Drive Error

Encountering a Shared Drive Error (such as “Cannot move items into Shared Drive”, “Shared Drive limit exceeded”, or “Item cannot be shared externally”) happens when operation commands run up against Google’s organizational storage limits, user privilege hierarchies, or domain security firewalls.

This guide provides steps to resolve file counts, execute folder migrations, and refresh the virtual directory trees on your desktop client.

What Causes Shared Drive Errors?

Unlike individual Google Drives (“My Drive”), Shared Drives enforce strict administrative rules:

1. The 400,000 Item Limit: A single Shared Drive cannot contain more than 400,000 files, folders, or shortcuts. Deleted files inside the Shared Drive trash still count toward this total.
2. Folder Migration Restrictions: Regular users cannot move folders from “My Drive” into a Shared Drive. Moving entire folders changes ownership permissions in bulk, which only Workspace Administrators can authorize.
3. Sharing Firewalls: Corporate policies often block moving files containing external users into a Shared Drive, or block sharing the Shared Drive’s contents outside the organization.
4. Incorrect Member Roles: Attempting to move files with only “Commenter” or “Viewer” permissions, when “Contributor” or “Manager” status is required.

Detailed Steps to Resolve Shared Drive Errors

Follow these procedures to debug Shared Drive blocks.

Step 1: Check and Clean the Shared Drive File Limits

If you are seeing a limit error, you are likely close to the 400,000 total item limit.

1. Open the Shared Drive in your web browser.
2. To see the current item count, select all items in the root folder and check the details pane on the right side.
3. If the count is high, empty the Shared Drive Trash:
   • Note: Only users with the Manager role can empty trash inside a Shared Drive.
   • Go to Trash in the left panel.
   • Click the dropdown arrow at the top and select Empty Shared Drive Trash or select the Shared Drive name, right-click, and click Delete forever.

Step 2: Recreate and Migrate Folders (For Non-Admin Users)

Since Google prevents non-admin users from dragging and dropping folder folders from personal drives into a Shared Drive, you must migrate the files inside a fresh folder structure.

1. Open the target Shared Drive in your browser.
2. Click New → New Folder and name it matching your old folder.
3. Open your personal “My Drive” and navigate into the folder you wanted to move.
4. Press Ctrl + A (Windows) or Cmd + A (macOS) to select all files.
5. Right-click and choose Move (or drag them) to the new folder you created inside the Shared Drive.
6. The files will successfully migrate because the files are being reassigned to the Shared Drive container individually, bypassing the folder ownership limitation.

Step 3: Server-Side Bulk Folder Migration (Using rclone)

If you are an Administrator or have Manager access, you can run server-side folder copies using rclone to transfer large file hierarchies without downloading them locally.

:: Move folders directly between My Drive and a Shared Drive server-side
rclone move "MyDrive:MyLocalFolder" "SharedDrive:DestinationFolder" --drive-server-side-across-configs --drive-shared-with-me --verbose

# Execute server-side folder migration
rclone move "MyDrive:MyLocalFolder" "SharedDrive:DestinationFolder" --drive-server-side-across-configs --drive-shared-with-me --verbose

Step 4: Clear Shared Drive Mount Points on Desktop Client

If your desktop computer does not display newly added Shared Drives, force Google Drive to refresh its mount point catalogs.

:: Force close the client
taskkill /F /IM GoogleDriveFS.exe

:: Delete cached mount metadata configurations
cd /d "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Google\DriveFS"
del /F /S /Q *mount*

:: Relaunch Google Drive
start "" "C:\Program Files\Google\Drive File Stream\bin\GoogleDriveFS.exe"

# Terminate the sync client
killall "Google Drive"

# Delete mount state configuration catalogs
find ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/DriveFS -name "*mount*" -delete

# Relaunch the application
open -a "Google Drive"

Summary Checklist

• Check if the Shared Drive has exceeded the 400,000 file/folder capacity limit.
• Ensure you have the Manager or Contributor role on the Shared Drive to move files.
• If you are a standard user, create folders inside the Shared Drive web interface first and drag files inside.
• Empty the Shared Drive trash online using a Manager account.
• Flush the mount point caches on your desktop using the command blocks above.