Search for shared drives

This guide explains how the Google Drive API supports several ways to search shared drives.

To search for a specific set of shared drives, use the query string q field with the list method on the drives resource to filter the drives to return by combining one or more search terms.

A query string contains the following three parts:

query_term operator values

Where:

  • query_term is the query term or field to search upon.

  • operator specifies the condition for the query term.

  • values are the specific values you want to use to filter your search results.

For example, the following query string filters the search to only return shared drives with the name "Google Drive API resources."

q: name = 'Google Drive API resources' & useDomainAdminAccess=false

To view all shared drive query terms, see Shared drive-specific query terms.

To view all query operators that you can use to construct a query, see Query operators.

Query string examples

The following table lists examples of some basic query strings for shared drives. The actual code differs depending on the client library you use for your search.

You must also escape special characters in your file names to make sure the query works correctly. For example, if a filename contains both an apostrophe (') and a backslash ("\") character, use a backslash to escape them: name contains 'quinn\'s paper\\essay'.

What to query Example useDomainAdminAccess setting
String match operator (contains)
Shared drives with the word 'confidential' in the title among all shared drives that the user is a member of name contains 'confidential' false
Equality and inequality operators (=, !=)
Shared drives visible in the default view hidden = false false
Shared drives hidden from the default view hidden = true false
Shared drives with no assigned organizer organizerCount = 0 true
Shared drives with exactly one member memberCount = 1 true
Shared drives that belong to the organizational unit ID orgUnitId = 'C03az79cb' true
Shared drives that don't contain the organizational unit ID orgUnitId != 'C03az79cb' true
Shared drives with names not matching a specific name name != 'Archived Projects' true
Comparison operators (>, >=, <, <=)
Shared drives created after June 1, 2017 createdTime > '2017-06-01T12:00:00' true
Shared drives created before January 1, 2023 createdTime < '2023-01-01T00:00:00' true
Shared drives with more than one member memberCount > 1 true
Shared drives with fewer than 5 members memberCount < 5 true
Shared drives with 3 or fewer organizers organizerCount <= 3 true
Logical operators (and, or, not)
Shared drives with the word 'confidential' in the title and 20 or more members name contains 'confidential' and memberCount >= 20 true
Shared drives with the word 'confidential' in the title among all shared drives of the organization name contains 'confidential' and orgUnitId = 'C03az79cb' true
Shared drives with names containing either 'Project' or 'Archive' name contains 'Project' or name contains 'Archive' true
Shared drives that don't contain 'Draft' in their name not name contains 'Draft' true
Shared drives not belonging to a target organizational unit and created after a specific date orgUnitId != 'C03az79cb' and createdTime > '2023-01-01T00:00:00' true

Query multiple terms with parentheses

You can use parentheses to group multiple query terms together. For example, to search for shared drives created after a specific date and that either have more than five organizers or more than 20 members, use this query:

createdTime > '2019-01-01T12:00:00' and (organizerCount > 5 or memberCount > 20)

This search returns all shared drives created after January 1st, 2019 and that have more than five organizers or more than 20 members.

The Drive API evaluates and and or operators from left to right, so the same search without parentheses would return:

  • Only shared drives with more than five organizers that were created after January 1st, 2019.
  • All shared drives with more than 20 members, even those created before January 1st, 2019.