Users are able to manage documents, collaborate in real-time, and share relevant information effortlessly with Google Drive’s different tools. Clients on G Suite (Google Workspace) accounts have one more advantage – restriction on sharing documents with a feature that places limits on time. This ensures that a document can be viewed or edited by certain users for a defined period of time.

In this guide, we will take you through the steps of putting a time frame on document sharing on Google Drive with a paid Gmail account.

What Is Different With The Paid Gmail Account?

In the basic Gmail account, sharing a document is done through:

Find the file in My Drive and right-click on it.

Select the Share button, enter relevant information and click Send.

You now have the ability to share the file.

With a paid account, “Give Temporary Access” is now an option, enabling you to set times and dates for shared documents. After the ‘limit’ set, the recipient’s access will be entirely revoked.

How to Restrict the Access Time of a Particular Document

• You can limit the access to a document in Google Drive to a specified period of time and it is as simple as changing settings to ensure a document with confidential information doesn’t get into the hands of the wrong user.
• To begin, first sign in to your Google account and open Google Drive.
• Now, select My Drive and look for the file you wish to set the time restrictions on. Next, right click on the file and click on the option titled ‘Share’.
• At this stage, enter the email ID of the user you wish to share the document with. You also have the option to write a small note for the user.
• Next, click on the drop down option next to the settings and select “Give temporary access”.
• Next, in the section Access expires specify the time and date in terms of month, day and year along with hours and minutes on a 24 hour clock.
• Set the level of access you would like to give the user whether Commenter, Editor, or Viewer.
• After confirming all the above settings, hit close and then send.
• That is all you need to do. Ahora, the user will be able to access the document only till the time and date that you have specified. Post that, the access will be revoked automatically. This way, you won’t have to compromise around the security of your document.

Uses of Temporary Access Feature

This feature comes in handy especially when you want to provide someone access to a document to complete a task or a project. If you are preparing a report with a colleague, for example, you can grant them access as an Editor for a week and set the access to expire after the project is done. This helps you mitigate the chances of any unwanted edits being made or access being gained after the job is done.

Benefits of Sharing Documents Using Paid Gmail Accounts:

Control over access: Set who is permitted to view, comment on, or edit your documents.

Automatic access removal: When the allotted time expires, the user will no longer have access to the file, which helps safeguard your documents from unauthorized access.

Better organization: By having the ability to set access limits, you are able to control who has access to your documents and when.

Final Thoughts: The Most Effective Approach to Security is Combining It With Temporary Access

A time limit for shared documents in a Google Drive account is a useful feature that comes with paid Gmail accounts. It not only controls who has access to your data, but it also provides the ability to revoke that access at any moment and for any reason.

With the temporary access feature, your collaboration can be more efficient as sensitive documents are only shared for the required time frame. If you are still planning on upgrading to a paid Gmail account, this is yet another good reason to do so!