Remove MyDrive shortcut from Google Drive files

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Jay Lee

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Feb 11, 2021, 6:09:25 PM2/11/21

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"would like ot remove all of the MyDrive Links removed from the files"

I read that 3 times and still could not parse it and the screenshot didn't give me each other. Can you offer full detail of what the user is seeing and wants removed?

Jay Lee

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Jon Pankhurst

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Feb 12, 2021, 5:03:37 PM2/12/21

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Hi Jay,

Lets see if this makes more sense.

Hey Jon,

Best I can describe it is that all the contents in our shared company folder has been added to "My Drive" as a shortcut. No files/folders have been moved or duplicated, but aliases of every file/folder have been added to "My Drive". How can I remove these shortcuts/aliases from My Drive without moving the source files?

Screenshot attached of what "My Drive" looks like when I go to the homepage of Google Drive. Note in the Details panel the file locations.

Let me know if you think there is anything that can be done.

Thank you,

Jon Pankhurst

Sales Engineer - Suitebriar

A Google Cloud Premier Partner

#stayhomestaysafe

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Brian Kim

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Feb 12, 2021, 5:41:01 PM2/12/21

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Hey Jon,

Something along the lines of

gam redirect csv. ./files.csv user jon print filelist showmimetype gshortcut fields id

then

gam csv files.csv user jon delete drivefile ~id

In case you have shortcuts in your My Drive that you may want to keep, you might want to play with the output of the CSV file so you can review the content before executing the delete command.

Ross Scroggs

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Feb 12, 2021, 8:07:47 PM2/12/21

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Jon,

Brian's version will delete all of a user's shortcuts, this example only deletes the shortcuts directly in My Drive.

# Get ID of My Drive

$ gam user us...@domain.com show fileinfo root fields id

User: us...@domain.com, Show 1 Drive File/Folder

Drive Folder: My Drive (012YenC8f12ALUk9XYZ)

id: 012YenC8f12ALUk9XYZ

# Find all shortcuts directly in My Drive

$ gam redirect csv ./shortcuts.csv user us...@domain.com print filelist query "(mimeType = 'application/vnd.google-apps.shortcut') and ('012YenC8f12ALUk9XYZ' in parents)" fields id,name,mimetype

Getting all Drive Files/Folders that match query ('me' in owners and ((mimeType = 'application/vnd.google-apps.shortcut') and ('012YenC8f12ALUk9XYZ' in parents))) for us...@domain.com

Got 1 Drive File/Folder that matched query ('me' in owners and ((mimeType = 'application/vnd.google-apps.shortcut') and ('012YenC8f12ALUk9XYZ' in parents))) for us...@domain.com...

# Verify that shortcuts.csv makes sense

$ more shortcuts.csv

Owner,id,name,mimeType

us...@domain.com,012bpr8ilJYF-ELVTg1P8xbUzcOfs4xyz,My Doc,application/vnd.google-apps.shortcut

# Delete shortcuts

$ gam user us...@domain.com delete drivefile csvfile shortcuts.csv:id

User: us...@domain.com, Trash 1 Drive File/Folder

User: us...@domain.com, Drive File/Folder: My Doc 1, Trashed

Ross

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Ross Scroggs

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Ross Scroggs

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Feb 13, 2021, 10:38:19 AM2/13/21

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Jon,

I think that Jay and Brian and I were all mislead by your use of the term My Drive shortcut.

My Drive is not a shortcut, it the user's root folder.

It doesn't appear to me now that this involves shortcuts at all, but unwanted folders located in My Drive.

Is that correct?

In your latest screenshot, the highlighted folder is owned by the user and is shared to others.

If the folder is deleted, others lose access to it.

Where did these folders come from?

Ross

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Brian Kim

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Feb 13, 2021, 11:09:43 AM2/13/21

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Hey Ross,

I assume they were created by Cloud M Migrate. When I asked them previously about the ability to multi-parent files (due to Sept 30th change) they indicated they somehow had an exemption to the change in API behaviour.

It looks like the file is on both the user's My Drive, as well as another folder called !Edits. But the owner is the user that is in Jon's screenshot.

Google-to-Google migrations are now even messier because of this.

Brian Kim

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Feb 13, 2021, 11:13:15 AM2/13/21

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For Jon - I would suggest creating a ticket with CloudM and showing a side by side picture of user's My Drive (both source and destination). I don't think they quite understood the implication of the change in API behaviour. Sure it can be fixed using GAM eventually, but for a paid product, they should be doing a better job of handling things like these.

Jon Pankhurst

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Feb 13, 2021, 11:15:47 AM2/13/21

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This was correct, I was going off of the fact that the client would remove the MyDrive from the right side options of the folder. I think that you have the correct context.

Thank you,

Jon Pankhurst

Sales Engineer - Suitebriar

A Google Cloud Premier Partner

#stayhomestaysafe

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Brian Kim

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Feb 14, 2021, 8:38:33 AM2/14/21

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Hey Ross,

Wouldn't it be possible to delete one of the parents?

I believe this behaviour is because it's no longer able to orphan a file (i.e. if you intentionally try to orphan a file, it will put the file back in user's My Drive).

removeparents <id for user's root> might work.. but being able to identify multi-parented files might be hard. CloudM might have this in the SQL database.

Maybe checking for inherited permissions for each file using GAM?

Jon Pankhurst

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Feb 16, 2021, 12:53:35 PM2/16/21

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Yes, I confirm what Ross said, we want to eliminate the My Drive, to reduce clutter in the Google Drive.

Thank you,

Jon Pankhurst

Sales Engineer - Suitebriar

A Google Cloud Premier Partner

#stayhomestaysafe

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Message has been deleted

Brian Kim

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Feb 16, 2021, 2:41:20 PM2/16/21

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Third time is the charm.. my message keeps getting deleted when posting with my work account.

gam user <username> show fileinfo <fileId>

This shows parents.

gam user <username> print filelist showparent

This shows number of parents as well as parents.[i].id

gam user <username> print filelist showparentidsaslist

This shows parentIds in one cell.

With this finding, you can probably do

gam config csv_output_row_filter "'parents:count>1'" user <username> print filelist showmimetype gfolder depth 0 anyowner fields id,title,parents depth 0

anyowner is necessary if the folders in question are owned by "me" or someone else (which seems to be the case for you)

Jon Pankhurst

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Feb 18, 2021, 9:20:27 AM2/18/21

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We had a session with Ross and got it figured out!

Thank you again Ross!

Jon Pankhurst

Sales Engineer - Suitebriar

A Google Cloud Premier Partner

#stayhomestaysafe