Late last year Google announced a new Google Drive option called Team Drives. At that time G Suite administrators had to apply for access for their schools. Beginning this week all G Suite administrators can enable Team Drives for their schools.

Team Drives is a Google Drive product designed specifically for team use. Rather than just sharing a single file or folder, Team Drives will give everyone in the team access to everything in the Team Drive by default. This means that if someone creates a file in a Team Drive that file will be available to everyone within that team even if the creator of the file later leaves the team.

It is important to note that Team Drives can only be created by G Suite domain administrators at this time. Admins can click here to learn how to enable Team Drives.

Applications for Education

The default sharing settings in Team Drives might be a bit too open for use by younger students. But it could be great for high school and college students working together on long-term projects. Team Drives could also be a great asset for academic departments that want to have all members sharing lesson ideas and resources.