How to Find Publicly Shared Files or Public Links in Google Drive?

Google Drive is a fantastic tool for storing and sharing files, but sometimes it’s easy to lose track of what’s shared publicly vs. privately. Whether you want to review files for privacy purposes or manage sensitive information, locating publicly shared files in your Drive can be critical. In this post, we’ll cover:

1. Why Finding Publicly Shared Files Matters
2. Manual Steps to Identify Publicly Shared Files across an organization's Google Drive
3. How Strac Makes This Process Faster and Simpler
4. Next Steps

Let’s dive right in.

Updated May 2026 — find publicly-shared Drive files, the right way. Google Workspace admins can find public Drive links via the Reports API and the Drive Audit Log. For most orgs, the practical tool is a continuous data-discovery layer that flags every new public link the moment it's created. Strac Google Drive DLP catches public-share events in real time and remediates automatically. See Strac Google Drive DLP →

1. Why Finding Publicly Shared Files Matters?

• Data Privacy: Ensuring that no sensitive or confidential data is publicly accessible.
• Security Compliance: Keeping track of externally shared documents is essential to comply with regulations and protect your company’s information.
• Organization and Efficiency: Too many publicly shared files can be hard to manage. Identifying and organizing them cuts down on clutter.

2. Manual Steps to Identify Publicly Shared Files across an organization's Google Drive

There is truly no way for admins to see all publicly shared files, i.e. files with "Anyone with the link" sharing permissionin one place using Google Drive. However, an individual user can search for publicly shared files in their own Drive, admins don’t have this global view.

3. How Strac finds & remediates Publicly Shared Files in Google Drive?

Strac automates your search for publicly shared files and helps you securely manage sensitive information. Here’s a brief look at how it works:

1. Connect Your Google Drive
   • In the Strac dashboard, add a Google Drive connector.
2. Automated Scanning & Monitoring
   • Strac scans your Drive for various risk factors, including publicly shared files. This eliminates the manual guesswork of searching and filtering.
   • Set Alerts: Configure alerts to notify you if any file switches to “Anyone with the link” or “Public on the web.”
3. Dashboard Review
   • The Strac dashboard shows you a list of publicly accessible files immediately, so you can see everything in one place.
   • You’ll also see critical details like file type, permissions, and a quick preview of sensitive content.

4. ‍One-Click Remediation: Within Strac, select a file and update its sharing permissions right away. OR select all files that match the criteria and remove public access. No more back-and-forth between Drive and security tools.

Strac Benefits

• Time Savings: Automatically scanning your Drive for publicly shared files means you don’t have to do it manually each time.
• Real-Time Alerts: If someone on your team accidentally makes a file public, you’ll know right away over Slack or Teams OR push automatically to your favorite SIEM tool.
• Centralized Security: Strac does more than just track public sharing—it can also detect potential PII (personally identifiable information) or sensitive data, all from one platform.

Bottom Line

Google Drive makes collaboration easy, but it also makes it easy for sensitive files to become publicly accessible without anyone noticing. Since Google Workspace doesn't provide admins with a centralized view of every publicly shared file, relying on manual reviews leaves organizations vulnerable to accidental data exposure.

Strac continuously discovers publicly shared files, identifies sensitive data inside them, alerts security teams in real time, and can automatically remove public access with one-click or policy-based remediation. Instead of periodically searching for risky files, you gain continuous visibility and automated protection for your Google Drive environment.

Frequently asked questions

1. Can Google Workspace admins see every publicly shared Google Drive file?

No. Google Workspace doesn't offer a single dashboard where administrators can view every file shared as "Anyone with the link" or "Public on the web" across the entire organization. While audit logs and reports provide visibility into sharing events, continuous monitoring requires a dedicated data security solution.

2. Why are publicly shared Google Drive files a security risk?

Public links are often created for convenience but can unintentionally expose sensitive information such as customer records, financial documents, source code, contracts, intellectual property, or regulated data. If the link is forwarded or indexed, anyone with access can view the file.

3. Can Strac automatically remove public sharing from Google Drive files?

Yes. Strac continuously monitors Google Drive for newly created public links and can automatically remediate them by removing public access, updating sharing permissions, or notifying security teams for review. This reduces the window of exposure without requiring manual intervention.

4. Does Strac only detect public links, or does it inspect the file contents too?

Strac goes beyond identifying public sharing. It scans file contents using content-aware detection to identify sensitive data such as PII, PCI, PHI, secrets, credentials, and other regulated information. This helps security teams prioritize the files that pose the greatest business risk instead of reviewing every public file manually.

5. How is Strac different from native Google Drive security tools?

Google Workspace provides basic sharing controls and audit logs, but Strac adds continuous discovery, real-time monitoring, sensitive data classification, automated alerts, and inline remediation—all from a centralized DSPM and DLP platform. This enables organizations to proactively prevent accidental data exposure instead of simply discovering it after the fact.