Enhanced external sharing insights now available in Drive Inventory Reporting

Administrators using Drive Inventory Reporting in Google BigQuery can now access granular external sharing fields designed to simplify complex permission structures. By automatically consolidating direct permissions, group memberships, and public links into clear signals, this update helps organizations easily identify external exposure across their Drive environments.

Administrators can now distinguish between human users, service accounts, and files published to the web, as well as cross-reference sharing attributes with existing Data Loss Prevention (DLP) metadata to prioritize remediation for high-risk data.

Getting started

• Admins: This feature will be OFF by default and can be enabled via the "External sharing calculations" setting under Drive inventory report settings in the Google Admin console. Note that for organizations with large Google groups, enabling this calculation may extend processing time and impact report delivery schedules.

Rollout pace

• Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on August 14, 2026

Availability

• Enterprise: Enterprise Standard, and Plus
• Education: Education Standard, and Plus
• Other Editions: Frontline Plus; Enterprise Essentials Plus; Cloud Identity Premium

Resources

• Google Workspace Admin Help: Export your organization’s Drive inventory
• Google Workspace Admin Help: Schema and example queries for Drive inventory exports in BigQuery