Google Drive security update may break some links to files, folders

A security update usually doesn’t change the functionality of our apps and it just makes them more, well, secure. But an upcoming security update to Google Drive may disrupt some of the files and folders that you have generated links for. Google warns users that some of these links may become inaccessible as they are rolling out an update that should make these files that you uploaded to the cloud drive more secure and that you shared links to other people in the organization or some that you needed to give access to.

Basically, what will happen once the security update rolls out is that they will add a resource key to those links from Google Drive that were generated for sharing. This is to further protect access to these files. If the person you shared it with already previously viewed the link or accessed the file, there should be no problem and they will continue to be able to access and they will not need to do anything.

But for those who have not viewed the link before and may be trying to do so now, they will need that resource key to access the file or folder that was shared to them. This may be an inconvenience for some but chances are, if you haven’t viewed that file by now, you probably won’t do so unless you just forgot to access it and will suddenly need it after the update has rolled out. The resource links should be able to make the shared link more secure.

For those on Google Workspace, admins have the choice whether or not to apply the security update to their organization or to do so with limitations. They need to do so on or before July 23. For end-users, they will receive an email notification starting July 26 that their files may be affected and have to decide until September 13 to determine how it will apply to the files they manage if the admin allows it.

Users with personal accounts will also receive notifications on how their files may be affected starting July 26. Google is giving Workspace and regular users the option to not apply the security update but they do not recommend that of course.