Google Drive mini tutorial. How to create the valid URL for the submission?

Google Drive is a good resource to provide the files for submission to TWMC. Why:

  • The URL doesn’t have a deadline.
  • The basic version is for free and it provides quite a lot of space.
  • It is easy to use.

There is one thing you need to know when submitting an album: what you have to do is to send us the Shareable link. Not Share.

Why? There are three reasons why the Share option is not the right one for this:

  • Because Share is for sharing the control to edit. The account you shared the link with, would be able to edit and would be updated about any changes you made in the folder.
  • But that is not the main problem related to using the Share for submission. The main problem is that if you share the folder with one specific email account, for instance, transglobalwmc@gmail.com, the panelists wouldn’t have access to the folder. From TWMC we forward the email that we receive with the data you submit in the submission form.
  • There is one more issue with Share. If the other part didn’t have a Drive account, he/she can’t do anything with that.

So the solution is to Get shareable link. Pay attention.

Go to your Drive folder and find the folder you want to submit. In our example it is the folder Artist – Album:

Here, you just have to click with the right button of the mouse and you’ll have this:

Click on Get shareable link. A new menu will show up. Check the content indicated with the red arrow. You will have to change this option in order to provide us the link that all our panelists could open. It is as symple as clicking there and changing from Restricted to Anyone with the link option:

Here below it is already changed. Now we will have the link that will be useful for anyone who had it. Now you just have to copy the link in the Copy link text, indicated here with the red arrow:

When you click in Copy link, you’ll receive a confirmation message and you’ll have the link in your clipboard. In our case, this is the shareable link:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Q4HbeJ7iItdpam2dj1q8aziRjkkT5jkf?usp=sharing

That’s all, folks!