How to Share a Google Doc via Email?

December 13, 2021

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In this tutorial, we are going to quickly share a Google Doc via email. We recommend you study this manual carefully and start practicing!

Checklist of crucial points we aim to highlight here:

Entering the Sharing Menu
Adding People & Their Emails
Assigning Permissions When Sending the Doc
Setting Up Public Access to the Doc

Well, first of all, you cannot just simply share the Google Doc via email. At first, you need to set up permissions for how a person is allowed to work with the document, for example, editing, commenting, or just viewing it. And also, if you want the document to be accessible publicly or with only a certain group of people in the limited access mode. So, let’s get to it.

Watch the video from https://thegoodocs.com/ and find out how to share a Google Doc via email:

Entering the Sharing Menu

At first, we go to the sharing menu. We prefer doing that from the document itself, but you can also do that from Google Drive.

From the document, we go to the top right corner and press the blue share button. Here’s the sharing menu

NB! If you don’t have such a button, you may have minimized the toolbar. And to unfold it, you need to find such an arrow icon here on the right and click it. And then go to the sharing menu.

Adding People & Their Emails

You will see that you are designated as the document`s owner; only you have access to the doc since initially, it is created in a private mode

From here, you have two menus for sharing. And we need the top one standing for sharing a document with a limited group of people by entering their emails

Now we need an email of the person that you want to share the document with. Let us enter one. And here, Google shows that the user has a Google account. And we press on the suggested account. There the person was added

NB! Either way, if the person doesn’t have a Google account, it won’t suggest adding him/her like this. And it actually won’t be different from a public sharing mode where the document is accessible to anyone with the link.

NB! And here, we want the document to stay in the restricted mode. This means that a person with non-Google email will have to create a record in Google’s system anyway. But yet Google doesn’t require the email to be Google’s Gmail. You can create a Google account without a Google email, but with any other one. Actually, thanks to Google for such a feature

Assigning Permissions When Sending the Doc

Now we’re giving specific permission to a user.

Drag the cursor to the button next to the typing field and press it. Now you can assign a specific role to every single user. The Editor mode, where the person will have complete access to edit the document. The Viewer mode, where a person can only view the document and download it, but not change anything in the document. And the Commenter mode that does not allow the person to edit the document but allows to write and post comments to certain parts of the document. Now we are leaving the Editor mode, for example. And such an adding method is applied to every next user

Then with this checkbox, you select whether you want to notify the invited people. That will open a message field where you can enter an invitation message that will go to everyone’s above-mentioned email addresses. And we press “Send” to notify the added users. There we go

And what’s nice about this sharing method is that the document remains in restricted access mode but can be accessed by only certain users, chosen by you
By the way, we can go to the advanced sharing settings by pressing this cog icon and modifying such settings for editors, commenters, and viewers

Setting Up Public Access to the Doc

And finally, to allow the public access to the document, we go back to the selection of sharing methods, click on the bottom window, press on “Restricted”, and select “Anyone with the link”

Now here on the right, we have the same access permissions setup. But here, they are applied to everyone with a link, not just specific users, making it more widely available. So, the same works here — only a viewing mode, commenter mode, or full editing mode, but this time with no specific users. So, select the option you need

Copy the link and share it with people you work with on this document by attaching the link to the email in any messenger or social networks. When everything is checked and performed, press the Done button

We hope this tutorial will help you learn how to share a Google Doc via email. Good luck!

Written by

Team TheGoodocs

We are a team of creative people who dream of sharing knowledge and making your work and study easier. Our team of professional designers prepares unique free templates. We create handy template descriptions for you to help you choose the most suitable one. On our blog, you'll find step-by-step tutorials on how to use Google Products. And our YouTube channel will show you all the ins and outs of Google products with examples.