[null,null,["อัปเดตล่าสุด 2025-08-04 UTC"],[],[],null,["# Files and folders overview\n\nGoogle Drive organizes files in collections, describes files by types, and\nprovides specific attributes for each file to facilitate file manipulation.\n\nThe Google Drive API represents files stored on Drive as a\n[`files`](/workspace/drive/api/reference/rest/v3/files) resource.\n| **Note:** Folders are treated as a type of file. For more details about folders, see [File types](#types).\n\nOwnership\n---------\n\nDrive organizes files based on the user's relationship with the\ncontent and its storage location. *Collections* are specified as part of the\nfile's metadata to show which group of files the file is stored with inside\nDrive. The main difference between My Drive and\nshared drive collections is file ownership. A single user is the owner of files\nin their My Drive, whereas a group or organization owns files in\na shared drive.\n\n*My Drive*\n: Each user has a \"root\" folder called \"My\n Drive\" that functions as their primary hierarchy, and\n consists of everything that descends from this root folder. The user is the\n primary owner of this folder.\n\n*Shared drives*\n: A [shared drive](/workspace/drive/api/guides/about-shareddrives) is an\n organizational structure within Drive that lives parallel to\n My Drive. You can organize an individual file within a shared\n drive or My Drive, but not both. However, [Drive shortcuts](/workspace/drive/api/guides/shortcuts) can be used to\n point to files or folders from shared drives to My Drive, or\n the other way around.\n\nFile types\n----------\n\nDrive describes files by types. This list shows all available\nfile types:\n\n*Blob*\n: A file that contains text or binary content such as images, videos, and\n PDFs.\n\n*Folder*\n\n: A container you can use to organize other types of files on\n Drive. Folders are files that only contain metadata, and have\n the MIME type `application/vnd.google-apps.folder`. For more information,\n see [Create and populate folders](/workspace/drive/api/guides/folder).\n\n **Note:** A single file stored on My Drive can be in multiple\n folders. A single file stored on a [shared\n drive](/workspace/drive/api/guides/about-shareddrives) can only have one parent folder.\n\n*Google Workspace document*\n\n: A file that a Google Workspace application\n creates, such as Google Docs, Sheets, or\n Slides. The MIME type format is\n `application/vnd.google-apps.*app*` where *app* is the application name\n (such as `application/vnd.google-apps.spreadsheet` for a\n Sheets file). For a list of Drive and\n Google Workspace-specific MIME types, see [Google Workspace and\n Google Drive supported MIME types](/workspace/drive/api/guides/mime-types).\n\n*Shortcut*\n\n: A metadata-only file that points to another file on Drive. The\n shortcut file MIME type is `application/vnd.google-apps.shortcut`. For more\n information, see [Create a shortcut to a Drive\n file](/workspace/drive/api/guides/shortcuts).\n\n*Third-party shortcut*\n\n: A metadata-only file that links to content stored on a third-party storage\n system. The third-party shortcut file MIME type is\n `application/vnd.google-apps.drive-sdk`. For more information, see [Create a\n shortcut file to content stored by your\n app](/workspace/drive/api/guides/third-party-shortcuts).\n\n| **Note:** You cannot upload or download folders, Google Workspace documents, shortcuts, and third-party shortcuts to or from Drive. However, if they use compatible formats you can upload or export Google Workspace documents. For example, you can create a Docs document when you import a PDF. Similarly, you can export a Google Slides presentation as a Microsoft PowerPoint file.\n\nFile characteristics\n--------------------\n\nThis list shows some characteristics of a Drive file:\n\n*Access proposal*\n: A proposal from a requester to an approver to grant a recipient access to a\n Drive item. For more information, see [List and resolve\n pending access\n proposals](/workspace/drive/api/guides/manage-sharing#access-proposals).\n\n*Content*\n: The binary or text body of the file. Some content examples you can store in\n Drive are images, videos, text, and PDFs.\n\n*File ID*\n: A unique, opaque ID for each file. File IDs are stable throughout the life of\n the file, even if the file name changes. [Search\n expressions](/workspace/drive/api/guides/search-files) are used to locate files by name,\n type, content, parent container, owner, or other metadata.\n\n*Metadata*\n: Data describing the contents of the file. This data includes the name, type,\n creation, and modification times. Some metadata fields, such as the `name`,\n are user-agnostic and appear the same for each user. Other fields, such as\n `capabilities` and `viewedByMeDate` contain user-specific values. File\n types, such as images and videos, contain additional metadata extracted from\n EXIF and other embedded metadata. For more information, see [Manage file\n metadata](/workspace/drive/api/guides/file).\n\n*Permission*\n: An access grant for a user, group, domain, or the world to access a file or a\n folder hierarchy. Users control who can access a file with the access\n control list (ACL), which is a list of permissions for the file. For more\n information, see [Share files, folders and\n drives](/workspace/drive/api/guides/manage-sharing).\n\n*Revision history*\n: The record of changes to the file content only, not the file metadata. For\n more details about revisions, see [Changes and revisions overview](/workspace/drive/api/guides/change-overview).\n\n*Thumbnail*\n: A graphical representation of a file. Drive automatically\n generates thumbnails for many common file types. For shortcuts and other\n file types that Drive can't render, you can provide a\n thumbnail image. For more information, see [Upload thumbnails](/workspace/drive/api/guides/file#upload-thumbnails).\n\nFile organization\n-----------------\n\nThe Drive API organizes files into storage locations, called `spaces`,\nand collections, called `corpora`.\n\n*Spaces*\n\n: Specific storage locations that are isolated from each other. All content in\n Drive is stored in one of these two defined spaces: `drive`\n and `appDataFolder`.\n\n - `drive`: Includes all user-visible files created in\n Drive. PDFs, documents, Google Docs, shortcuts, and\n other content the user uploads is located in the `drive` space.\n\n - `appDataFolder`: Includes per-user application data. Applications\n typically store configuration files and other data not intended to be\n directly accessible by users.\n\n Files cannot move between `spaces`.\n\n*Corpora*\n\n: Collections of files used to narrow the scope of file and folder searches. The\n corpora for Drive are: `user`, `domain`, `drive`, and\n `allDrives`.\n\n - `user`: Includes all files created by and opened by the user in \"My\n Drive\", and those shared directly with the user in\n \"Shared with me.\"\n\n - `drive`: Includes all files contained in a single shared drive, as\n indicated by the `driveId`.\n\n - `domain`: Includes all searchable files shared with the user's domain.\n\n - `allDrives`: Includes all files in shared drives where the user is a\n member, and all files in \"My Drive\" and \"Shared with me.\"\n Use the `allDrives` corpora with caution as it has a broad scope and can\n affect performance. When possible, use `user` or `drive` instead of\n `allDrives` for efficiency.\n\n Files can move freely between `corpora` as permissions and ownership change.\n\nRelated topics\n--------------\n\nHere are a few next steps you might take:\n\n- Learn how to [Create and manage files](/workspace/drive/api/guides/create-file).\n- Learn how to [Create and populate folders](/workspace/drive/api/guides/folder).\n- Learn how to [Upload file data](/workspace/drive/api/guides/manage-uploads).\n- Learn how to [Download and export files](/workspace/drive/api/guides/manage-downloads).\n- Learn how to [Store application-specific data](/workspace/drive/api/guides/appdata).\n- Learn how to [Display the Google Picker](/workspace/drive/api/guides/picker) on a page."]]
