How to 'unshare' a Google Doc to make it private after you've already shared it with others

Steven John

Sep 19, 2019, 23:24 IST

How to 'unshare' a Google Doc to make it private after you've already shared it with others

To unshare a Google Doc, you just need to go into the document's sharing menu.

It's easy to share a Google Doc if you want people to collaborate on it, and it's just as easy to unshare a Google Doc if you want to keep it private.
The creator of a Google Doc can unshare a document at any time, or choose what level of permission others have: view-only, comment-only, or full editing access.
If you ever decide you want to unshare a Google Doc that you've shared before, it only takes a few clicks to do so.
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Whether you want to share a Google Doc with a colleague so you can work together, or you want to kick a coworker off a project entirely and unshare a Google Doc, it's easy to alter the permissions on a Google Doc.

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When you unshare a Google Doc, anyone you've unshared it with will have their permissions revoked immediately. This means they won't be able to edit or comment.

If you've totally locked the document, they'll still be able to read it until they refresh the page. But once they do refresh, their access will be gone.

How to unshare a Google Doc

1. Open the shared Google Doc.

2. Click on the blue box reading "Share" in the top right corner, and then, in the bottom right corner of the popup window, click "Advanced."

Steven John/Business Insider

Click the blue "Share" button.

3. On the new popup menu that appears, to simply unshare the Doc entirely, click the "X" next to the name of each person you want to remove access from.

Steven John/Business Insider

If you click the X icon, all that person's permissions will be removed.

4. If instead of removing someone altogether, you'd rather change the person's permissions in the Doc, click the pencil icon beside their name and email, and then select their access ("Can view," "Can comment," "Can edit," e.g.).