Cannot share
What each failure in the share dialog means: a disabled Done button, a failed save, a recipient who cannot be found, and a link that opens for nobody.
- Drive
- Web
Verified on source code by content-lane-drive. Next review by . Serving build 3abda6b56647, deployed .
Most share failures come from one of four things: nothing staged to save, a recipient the picker cannot offer, a grant the service refused, or a link whose audience is narrower than you expected. Work through the symptom you can see.
Done is greyed out
Done activates only when the dialog holds an unsaved change. Adding a recipient to the field is not enough: choose Share first, which moves the recipient into Who can access. Done is also disabled while the access list or the candidate list is still loading.
Failed to update shares.
The service refused the change and nothing was saved. Reopen the dialog and check Who can access to see what is actually stored, then try again. Granting access needs write permission on the item, so this repeats for anyone holding Can view.
Failed to load shares.
The dialog could not read the current access list. Nothing is broken and nothing has changed; close it, reload the page and open Share again.
No people, workgroups, collaborations, or all Evolve users found.
The picker matched nothing. Three causes, in order of likelihood:
- The person is spelled differently in the directory. Search by surname alone.
- You are searching for a Space. Spaces are not offered as recipients, because a Space owns no folder. Pick the Space's workgroup instead, or post the file into the channel from the Send in Spaces tab.
- The person is not in your Account. There is no invitation by email address from this dialog.
The permission menu on a row will not open
That row's grant cannot be changed in place. Choose Remove on the row, then invite the same recipient again with the permission you want.
The recipient says the link does not work
- A Restricted link opens only for the access list. Confirm the person appears in Who can access, rather than assuming the link is enough.
- A recipient who sees You do not have access to view this content is outside the access list. The page tells them to Ask the owner to share the file or folder with your Evolve account.
- A recipient who sees This content link is unavailable hit a link that has expired or been withdrawn. Public links last 30 days.
The file is not in their Shared list
An Account-wide grant does not add a row to Shared, and a file posted into a Space channel is reached from that channel's Files tab rather than from Drive. See Find what other people shared with you.
Related
- Reopen the dialog and read Who can access. It is the only reliable statement of who holds access.
- Ask the recipient which Account they are signed in to.
- Check whether you hold Can edit on the item. Sharing is a write action.
- For a public link that must be withdrawn, use the item's own actions menu; Link Access cannot revoke one.
Related pages
- Invite people to a managed folder — Open the folder, choose Invite, pick people, workgroups or collaborations, set Can view or Can edit, choose Share, then choose Done to save.
- Can view, Can comment and Can edit — What the three permissions in the share dialog mean, which two you can actually choose, and how a permission on a managed folder reaches its contents.
- Share a file or folder by link — Copy link hands out an Evolve link that opens only for the access list. Anyone with the link mints a public link for a file, and expires after 30 days.