How to Transfer Google Drive Files to Another Account

Moving Google Drive files to another account sounds like it should be simple. It isn't. Google's native options are limited, slow, or only work for certain scenarios. Here's the complete picture.

What Google's built-in options let you do

Change ownership: Google lets you transfer ownership of a file to another person — but only if both accounts are on the same Google Workspace domain. Personal Gmail accounts can't transfer ownership to other Gmail accounts this way.

Share and copy: You can share files with the other account, open them, and make a copy. This works for a handful of files, but it's tedious for hundreds of files and doesn't preserve folder structure.

Google Takeout + re-upload: Download everything via Takeout, then re-upload to the new account. This works but loses your folder structure, takes hours of manual effort, and risks corrupting large files during transfer.

The better way: GTransfer

GTransfer moves Google Drive files between accounts directly — no download, no re-upload, folder structure preserved. Here's how it works:

Step 1 — Connect both Google accounts. Sign in at gtransfer.app and connect your source account (the one with the files) via OAuth. Then connect the destination account.

Step 2 — Browse and select. GTransfer shows your Drive folder tree. Select individual files, specific folders, or your entire Drive. You can see file sizes before you commit.

Step 3 — Start the transfer. GTransfer copies files between accounts via the Google Drive API. Folder structure is recreated in the destination. You can track progress live.

Step 4 — Verify and clean up. Once complete, check that files arrived correctly in the destination account. Then decide whether to delete the originals from the source account — if you want to free up storage space, deleting and emptying Trash is the final step.

How to free up storage at the same time

If you're transferring Drive files because your Google account is full, moving them to another Google account doesn't help — both accounts draw from the same Google storage pool.

To actually free up space, you need to move files outside of Google entirely — to Mega.nz or Drime, which each offer 20 GB free. GTransfer Pro (£19 one-time) handles this. See the full guide: Google Drive storage full — what to do.

What GTransfer can and can't move

Can move: Files and folders you own, Google Docs/Sheets/Slides (converted to standard formats), uploaded PDFs, images, ZIP files, and any other Drive files you have ownership of.

Can't move: Files shared with you that you don't own, Shared Drives (Workspace feature), files with special permissions restrictions.

The Essential plan (£9 one-time) covers unlimited Drive file transfer between Google accounts, along with Gmail migration. No subscription needed.