How to Transfer Your Google Drive to Another Account: Personal accounts do not include a native feature for transferring Google Drive between accounts. You can transfer Drive content to another account by sharing files and folders with another email address or by downloading and re-uploading them.
You can use Google Takeout to automatically and without much effort transfer content from Google Drive to another cloud storage service, such as Dropbox, OneDrive, or Box.
Your Google Drive account stores all files you’ve ever created on any Google service, as well as those you’ve manually uploaded from your computer or mobile device. You can only store up to 15GB of data on Google Drive if you have a personal account, which can rapidly fill up if you have already saved a significant amount of content.
Move some or all of your extant content from its original location to conserve storage space. In this post, we’ll explain all the methods you can transfer files from one Google Drive account to another so that you can free up space and maintain a secondary backup of your Drive data.
Can you migrate your Google Drive to a different account?
True and no. Users can only migrate Drive files from an existing Google Workspace account to a new account if both accounts belong to the same organisation. This action can only be performed by the organization’s administrator, who will be able to transfer ownership of files to another account after the elder account has been suspended, resulting in orphaned files.
If you own a personal Google account that is not associated with an organisation, there is no native utility you can use to automatically transfer your Google Drive content to another account.
Transferring your Google Drive to a new account
While Google does not provide a dedicated tool to migrate your Google Drive to another account, there are other methods to accomplish this within Google’s ecosystem that do not require the use of third-party applications or services.
Create a folder containing all of your Drive files and share it with another account.
Utilising the Share feature within Google Drive is the simplest method for transferring content from one account to another. Before you can use this option, however, you must relocate the files you desire to transfer to a shared folder with the other account.
Although you can use the Share feature on multiple files and folders simultaneously, transferring the contents into a single folder simplifies and streamlines the process. Additionally, having a “Transfer folder” shared with other accounts enables you to effortlessly share future files and folders, as all you need to do is shift them to the “Transfer folder” for them to be transferred automatically.
Create a transfer folder in Step 1
To begin, open drive.google.com on your computer’s web browser and select the + New button in the upper left corner of the screen.
- In the resulting context menu, select New subdirectory.
- The screen will display a New folder field in which you must input a name for the folder you’re creating. In this case, we’ll call it “Transfer folder” and then proceed by clicking Create.
- The newly created folder should now appear at the top of your Drive homepage.
Step 2: Copy the necessary files to your transfer subdirectory
Now, select the files and folders you wish to move from this Google account to another. To select a file or folder, hover over it and click its left-hand checkbox.
- When you do so, your Drive homepage will highlight the selected file or folder. You can now select multiple files and folders by selecting their respective checkboxes on the screen.
- Once all the files and folders you wish to transfer have been selected, drag and drop them into the “Transfer folder” Alternately, you can transfer the selected files and folders to another folder by selecting transfer to from the overflow menu after tapping on the three dots icon at the top.
- Check whether “Transfer folder” appears in the Suggested section of the pane that appears. If so, select this folder and then click Move at the bottom of the page.
- If not, select the All locations pane, navigate to the “Transfer folder”, select it, and then click the Move button.
- This will transfer the selected content from your Drive homepage into the Transfer folder you created in Step 1.
Share the transfer location with an additional account
After transferring the necessary files to your Transfer folder, you can now directly share this folder with the account to which you wish to transfer content. To accomplish this, simply right-click on the Transfer folder and select Share from the context menu.
- In the Share field that appears, input the person’s name or email address with whom you wish to share the selected folder, and then select their name from the search results.
- Once selected, their name should appear in the upper box. Now, select Send to validate access to the shared folder.
- Now, you can sign in to your secondary account to access the transferred files.
Method 2: Use Google Takeout to transfer your Drive data to another service or extract it.
Google has a centralised platform called “Takeout” from which you can retrieve any data stored in your Google account. You can discover data from a Google product you’ve used in the past, download it, or transmit it directly to a cloud storage account of your choosing using Takeout.
Google Drive is one of the products from which you can download content, and Takeout enables you to save all of your Google Drive files in their respective locations while preserving file categories, file information, and version information. Open takeout.google.com in a web browser on your computer and sign in with your Google account to use Google Takeout to save your Google Drive content.
When the Google Takeout page loads, you’ll notice that some of your Google data has already been chosen. Since we’re here to transfer Google Drive content from one account to another, deselect everything on the page.
Once the selected items have been deselected, locate the “Drive” section of this page by scrolling down. Once you have located this section, select the checkbox to its right.
By default, Google will select all of your Google Drive content for transfer. To replicate only a subset of files and folders on Drive, select the All Drive data included button located within the Drive section.
Uncheck the Include all files and folders in Drive checkbox in the Drive content options dialogue box to manually select the items to transfer.
Then, you can mark the boxes next to the items you wish to migrate and click OK at the bottom of the window. The folders that you selected will now be included in the transfer.
Clicking the Multiple formats icon within the Drive section allows you to select the preferable file formats for all the files you’re about to transfer from Drive. Although the files you manually upload to Drive will be preserved in their original format, this configuration enables you to change the file type of documents, presentations, and spreadsheets you created within Google Drive using other Google services.
In the resulting overflow pane, you will find a list of all the formats your data will be preserved in for the selected service. For example, the default format for documents created on Google Drive is DOCX, but you can alter it to PDF in this section. Similarly, you can alter the file type of other files created within Drive, and when you’re finished, you can select OK to continue.
Click Additional parameters within the Drive section to ensure that the transmitted content includes the complete data stored on all files.
Then, select both checkboxes within the Drive – advanced settings dialogue box before selecting OK.
After selecting the desired Google Drive files and folders, navigate to the bottom of the Google Takeout page and click Next step.
In the Destination section, you should now see the Send download link via email option selected. You may deselect this option if you wish to manually obtain the content and re-upload it to a different Google account. If you desire to transfer this data to a different cloud service, however, you can select the next option from the “Destination” drop-down menu.
When the drop-down menu expands, choose the cloud storage service (Dropbox, OneDrive, or Box) to which you wish to transfer the selected Drive data.
If you select an external cloud storage option, Google will automatically upload your files to your preferred cloud storage and provide you with a URL to access them from the chosen storage service.
Select Export once in the Frequency section after you’ve selected your destination type. This will ensure that the contents of your Drive are transferred only once and not multiple times.
On this page, you can select your preferred file type and size for the transfer. Once everything is configured, click Link accounts and then Export.
To initiate the transfer, you must opt in to the cloud storage service you selected above and then follow the on-screen instructions. You will receive an email on your Google account when the transfer is complete, indicating that you can access the transferred files on the destination account.
Method 3: Download all of your Google Drive files and manually upload them to another account
If neither of the above methods appeals to you, you can opt for the traditional method of saving all of your Google Drive content to your computer and then reuploading it to your secondary Google account. Launch drive.google.com in a web browser using your original Google account to accomplish this. Inside your Drive homepage, hover over the checkbox to the left of any files or folders you wish to select.
This will showcase the file or folder selected on this page. Clicking the checkbox with a minus sign (-) in the upper left corner of the page will indicate all of your Drive files and folders, as you will be transferring the entire Drive library to another account.
You may also modify this selection by deselecting the compartments containing the items you do not want to transfer.
After selecting the transferable content, click the Download icon at the top.
Google Drive will now generate a ZIP file containing all of the specified content, which will be downloaded automatically to your computer.
After the ZIP file has been entirely downloaded, it can be extracted to a new folder. Then, you can drag and drop this folder or its contents to your secondary Google Drive account.
Depending on the quantity of data you saved from your original account, this may take some time. You must ensure that your destination account has sufficient storage capacity for all of this content to upload successfully.
If your Google Drive is nearing capacity…
If the only reason you’re migrating Drive data from one account to another is because you’re running out of space on your current account, there’s an easy solution. You can choose to subscribe to Google One, which provides at least 100 GB of additional storage space for $1.99 per month, with additional storage options available at higher costs.
With additional storage, you are not required to transfer content from one account to another in order to save space, which can be inconvenient over time. You can retain all of your files within a single Google account without having to delete or relocate them. You can share the additional storage space you purchase with other members of your family or circle of acquaintances to make it more affordable.
Launch one.google.com in a web browser on your computer and sign in with your Google account to subscribe to Google One. From this page, you can choose between three plans: Basic, Standard, and Premium, which can be billed monthly or annually, based on your preference.
Why and when should your Google Drive account be transferred?
You may wish to transfer your Google Drive content to another account for a variety of reasons.
- Your account is running out of available capacity
- You wish to convert your personal account to a professional one and desire to transfer your personal files to a different location.
- Want to store your essential files and documents on a secondary account for backup purposes.
- You intend to deactivate your current account but wish to save your account information beforehand.
- Your Google account has encountered some issues.
