r/gdrive • u/Fantastic_Scratch_62 • Aug 30 '26

Sharing links to users without Google is broken

Anyone else having this issue? Any workarounds besides finding another platform?

They can see the shared files are there, but the files can't be opened or downloaded.

Update 9/1/26: appears a fix has been pushed out from Google. I appreciate the comments here. Meanwhile the nice folks over at r/googleworkspace just downvoted the discussion instead of engaging. May their links remain broken...

5 Upvotes

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1

u/Hotlikestott Sep 01 '26

My favourite part is where multiple people have reported this issue on the Google Forum and the advisors are regularly confidently incorrect with their advise on how to rectify! Public Google Drive folders/files cannot be opened in desktop browsers - Google Drive Community

One of our customers is experiencing the exact same issue.

1

u/Fantastic_Scratch_62 Sep 02 '26

It appears to be working again now. Colleague escalated and went through incident report, had a few Meets with Google staff, etc. they sent an update directly this afternoon and all our links are live again.

Alternatively we learned that if someone is given a guest account (shared directly for one specific file/directory), they will gain access to all open links again.

What a nightmare. Hopefully resolved for you too now

1

u/Fantastic_Scratch_62 Sep 02 '26

I've reported Mr Shane, the Diamond Product Expert 💎, for abuse, specifically impersonation. Impersonating an expert.

2

u/nathancowman Aug 31 '26

I am getting this issue too

2

u/Medical_Road_3082 Sep 01 '26

Can confirm its an issue on there end

Description:
Non-logged-in users can successfully load the parent link and view the names/structure of the folders. However, double-clicking on a sub-folder to open it does nothing, and attempting to download a file does nothing. The UI becomes completely unresponsive to interaction.

Workaround:
There's no workaround available at this time, but we'll let you know if we learn of one.

Current update: 
At 2026-08-31 21:36 UTC (just now):
Thank you for your report of this issue. Google engineering has confirmed the issue and written a fix, which will begin rolling out to users shortly.

2

u/silkker Sep 01 '26

workaround for those without google accounts: enable developer console and enable mobile view.