Google Doc Tips and Tricks: How to Make Someone Else the Owner of Your Document

Once you change the ownership, you won’t be able to transfer it back to yourself.

By Ashri Khandelwal | Updated: 24 April 2021 10:00 IST

Google Doc Tips and Tricks: How to Make Someone Else the Owner of Your Document

Photo Credit: Google

Google Docs

Highlights

Google makes you the owner of your Doc by default
The owner has the right to remove your access
You can’t change the owner of Google Docs on your phone

Whenever you create or upload a document on Google Drive, Google, by default, makes you the sole owner and editor of the doc. So, if you wish to transfer the ownership of your doc to someone else to make it easy for them to edit or share it, you can tweak the settings. But, once you do that, you won't be able to transfer the ownership back to yourself, and the new owner will have the ability to remove you and change access.

Here's everything that you need to know before making someone else the editor of your Google Doc.

Roles in Google Doc

The Owner of a Google Doc can edit, share, delete, remove access for editors and viewers and even invite others to edit or view it, while the Editor of a Google Doc can only edit and see the list of editors and viewers. They can remove and invite people if the owner allows them to do so.

The Viewer of a Google Doc can only read it and similarly, the Commenter has the right to only add comments.

Change owner of a Google Doc

You can't change the owner of Google Docs on your Android device or iPhone, so you will have to open it on your laptop or PC.

Open the home screen for Google Docs and go to that particular document you want to transfer the ownership of.
Now, click the Share button at the top right side of the screen and type the name or email id of the person you want to share the document with.
Then, click Share. But if you have already shared the doc then skip this step.
Now, to change the owner, go back to the Share option at the top and click the down arrow available right next to the name of the person.
Click Make Owner > Yes and then Done.

Now, that person will become the owner of the document and you will no longer have the option to change the settings.

For more tutorials, visit our How To section.

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