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The renewal notice arrives and the number has gone up again. You already pay for Google Workspace, every employee has Drive, and the files still live in ShareFile, Box, Egnyte or Dropbox because “that is where they have always been”. Moving them to Google shared drives is a sound decision. Doing it by dragging folders into Drive for desktop is not, and that is how most of the horror stories start.
This is the process we use. It is the same for all four platforms; only the export step differs.
Why a shared drive, not somebody’s My Drive
Files in My Drive belong to a person. When that person leaves, the files stay in a suspended account until somebody transfers or deletes them, which is a manual step that gets forgotten. A shared drive belongs to the organisation: members come and go, the files stay, and access is granted primarily through drive membership, with per-file and per-folder exceptions still possible. If you are also tidying up an old My Drive, read how to move files to a shared drive without breaking links or access first. Everything below assumes the destination is one or more shared drives.
The limits that decide your folder structure
Shared drives have limits that ShareFile, Box and Egnyte do not, and you must design around them before the first file moves:
- 500,000 items per shared drive, counting files, folders, shortcuts and items in the bin. A ten-year ShareFile archive of a legal or engineering firm exceeds this easily. Split by department, year or client.
- Folder depth. The technical limit is 100 levels of nesting, which nobody hits, but paths from Windows file servers with 200-plus characters and 15 levels are a sign the structure needs flattening anyway.
- Upload volume per user per day (currently 750 GB) and a maximum single file size of 5 TB. Migration tools spread the load across several accounts and respect these limits for you; a person with Drive for desktop hits them on day two.
- Membership. Access is granted at the shared-drive level, with per-folder and per-file sharing as the exception. If your Box structure relies on hundreds of per-folder permissions, plan to simplify, but do not solve it by giving a whole department access to everything.
The five-step process
1. Inventory
Export the full file list from the source: path, size, owner, last modified, sharing, including external collaborators. Every platform offers a report or an admin API. Sort by last modified: in the migrations we have done, most of the volume has not been modified in years (modified is not the same as read, so confirm with the owning team before archiving). Decide now what goes to an archive shared drive with a small membership and what goes into the working drives, and write down the access matrix you expect to see afterwards.
2. Design the destination
Map top-level source folders to shared drives. Name drives for how people work (“Finance”, “Projects 2026”, “Client X”), not for how the old system was organised. Create the drives, add the managers, and agree the access model: who is Manager, Content manager, Contributor, Viewer.
3. Pilot with one department
Migrate one team’s data first, ideally a representative team with a coordinator who has time. Verify item counts against the inventory, compare the access matrix before and after (including one external collaborator and one ordinary employee, not just an admin), open the worst files (large CAD drawings, spreadsheets with external links, files with odd characters in the name). Fix the process, then scale.
4. Bulk transfer
Use a tool, not a person. The choice depends on the source:
- Box and file servers: Google’s own Workspace Migrate supports these sources and maps folder structure and permissions. It needs a Windows server to run on and real setup work, and it is included only with certain editions (Business Standard and Plus among them), so check your edition first.
- Dropbox: Google’s Data import tool (in the Admin console) has a Dropbox connector. It carries files and a defined set of permissions; it does not carry earlier file versions or Dropbox Paper documents. Read its limitations page before promising anything.
- Citrix ShareFile and Egnyte: either export to a file server first and migrate from there with Workspace Migrate, or use a cloud-to-cloud migration service. Several reputable ones exist; they charge per gigabyte or per user, and they save you the intermediate server.
- Small volumes: for a handful of users and tens of gigabytes, a well-organised manual move with Drive for desktop is acceptable, in batches, with a checklist and a count at the end. The threshold is not a number; it is whether one person can still verify every folder by hand.
5. Cut-over and read-only
Announce a date. On that date the source becomes read-only, a final delta migration picks up files changed since the bulk run, and the shared drives become the only place to save. Keep the source read-only until the acceptance criteria are met (counts match, spot checks pass, the teams have signed off, retention obligations are covered), typically 30 to 90 days, then revoke the migration tool’s access tokens and close the subscription.
What breaks, and how to avoid it
- Links in documents and emails. Links to ShareFile or Box files do not turn into Drive links; they keep working only as long as the source is alive and then stop. Mitigate by migrating in a quiet period and keeping the read-only source available while people update bookmarks and templates.
- Permissions that do not map. Box’s per-folder collaborator model and Egnyte’s granular permissions have no exact equivalent. Expect to grant access per shared drive, to keep a small number of folder-level exceptions, and to create extra drives where a folder truly needs a different audience. Compare the access matrix before and after; do not assume the tool got it right.
- External collaborators. Shared drives can include external members only if the Admin console allows it (Apps, Google Workspace, Drive and Docs, Sharing settings). Decide the policy before migration or the tool will fail silently on those users.
- File names. Drive itself accepts almost anything, but Drive for desktop on Windows inherits Windows rules: names ending in a dot or a space, reserved names and very long paths cause sync errors later. Clean them at the source.
- Office files. Keep them as .docx and .xlsx. Do not convert to Google formats during migration; convert only files people actually edit collaboratively, later, deliberately. Macros and external links in spreadsheets do not survive conversion.
- Version history. Check your chosen tool’s capability table: several bring the current version only. If legal hold or audit requires full history, export it separately before closing the source.
- Timestamps. Some tools set “modified” to the migration date. Check the pilot; Workspace Migrate and the better commercial tools preserve original dates.
How long it takes and what it costs
As an illustration from our own projects, not a quote: a company of 20 to 100 people with 0.5 to 3 TB of data usually needs two to four weeks from inventory to cut-over, and the bulk transfer itself runs over a few nights. The cost is mostly hours: inventory and design, the pilot, the communication, and a fortnight of “where did my folder go” questions afterwards. Cloud-to-cloud services add a fee per terabyte. Set that against the annual cost of the subscription you are cancelling and you have the business case.
And the honest part: if your workflows depend on features the source platform does well and Drive does not, such as ShareFile’s client portals with e-signature or Egnyte’s hybrid on-premises caching, look at those workflows before you migrate. We have told companies to keep a small ShareFile account for client uploads and move everything else. It is a legitimate answer.
Frequently asked questions
Can I migrate directly from ShareFile to Google Drive?
There is no Google-provided direct connector for ShareFile. Either export to a file server and use Google Workspace Migrate, or use a third-party cloud-to-cloud migration service that supports both ends.
Will my Box or Dropbox sharing permissions carry over?
Partly. Internal user permissions map to shared-drive roles; folder-level exceptions and external collaborators need to be re-created or granted at drive level. Plan for a simpler model than you have today.
Do we need to convert Word and Excel files to Google Docs and Sheets?
No. Drive stores and previews Office files natively and Docs can edit them in place. Convert selectively, after the migration, for files that teams actually co-edit.
Related articles
- How to move files to a shared drive without breaking links or access
- Migrating from Microsoft 365 to Google Workspace: what to actually expect
- Google Workspace migration service
Planning a move to shared drives? We map ownership and permissions first, pilot with one team and test the agreed access after the move. Book a free 30-minute audit or call +371 22 30 50 90.
