One of the powerful features of Google Apps is sharing. The rights that you can give vary from just letting people view something to making them the owner of the item.
A question has come up over Folder Sharing. Here is the scoop:
TL/DNR version: If you don’t want people moving anything in or out of the folder, share as “View only”.
The rest of the story:
As you know Google Drive offers three types of sharing. “Can edit” ,”Can comment” and “Can View”. Last two are not complicated but the first one can be a real pain sometimes. Let me give you two different cases.
1) Suppose you shared a document created under “My Drive”. The collaborator will find the document under his/her “Shared with me” folder. This is the basic information about this type of sharing. The collaborator can move the file into any of his folders and moreover if he/she had installed Google Drive into the computer then the document will be synced automatically. This is an intermediate information and now I come to the advanced part. What happens if the collaborator deletes the file? Before answering consider that when you share your document with “Can Edit” right the collaborator can “edit” the document by all means. Another question; who is the owner of the document after sharing?
The answer of first question is (fortunately) the document will be erased from collaborators account but not from yours. And the owner of the file is always one person. This fact never changes according to type of sharing. BUT these facts will change in a minute
2) Suppose you had created a folder and shared it with someone. Some time later you entered the folder and created a document. As you know Google Drive prompts and asks if you really want to “create and share”. You said yes and moved on. The collaborator can see the folder and the document under “Shared with me”. Now, what will happen if the collaborator erases the document? The answer is not same as the previous one. When one of the collaborators erases a document Google Drive thinks that the document doesn’t belong to the folder so it moves the document out of the folder! Without asking the owner!
If you have such a situation don’t panic. Remember that it is not deleted just moved out of the folder but where is the document located? Nowhere, literally. You will not be able to find it under any folder except “All items”. If you click on “All Items” you can find your document there and you can move it to any folder you want. What about the ownership of the document? Well, the answer doesn’t change. You are still the owner.
* https://emrefirat.edublogs.org/2013/08/27/does-can-edit-mean-can-delete-in-google-drive/