A collect link is a share in reverse: instead of you sending files out, other people send files in — straight into a folder of your Drive. Perfect for collecting photos after an event, submissions, or scans from a client.
Creating one
Sign in, open the target folder in your Drive, and create a collect link from the folder's menu. A collect link always has a password — you set one when creating it (it can be changed, but never removed). You can also give the link a title, a note for the uploaders, an expiry, and close it manually at any time.
What the sender experiences
They open your link, enter the password, give their name and email, and upload. No account needed. Their files land in your folder, automatically organised into a subfolder named after the sender, so multiple people never mix together.
What you get
- One notification per finished submission — you do not get spammed per file.
- The files appear in your Drive like any other file: shareable, organisable, deletable.
Limits worth knowing
- Uploads through a collect link count against your storage quota, not the sender's — they do not even have one.
- If your storage runs out, the sender sees a generic error; your usage details are never shown to them.
- Closing or expiring the collect link stops new uploads; everything already received stays in your Drive.