Google now gives you the option to invite people who don’t have Google accounts to collaborate on your Google Drive files and folders as visitors. You control who can edit, comment on, or view the file. You can also stop sharing the file at any time.
Visitors can edit, comment on, or view your document for 7 days after they verify their email address. If they need to collaborate longer, they can use the link from the original sharing email to verify their identity again.
Share with visitors
- Go to Google Drive.
- Open the file or folder you want to share.
- Click Share.
- Under "Share with people and groups," enter the non-Google email address you want to share with.
- To change what people can do to your document, to the right of their email address, click the drop-down menu and select Viewer, Commenter, or Editor.
- Visitors cannot upload or create new files and folders.
- There is an option to notify people or not. Because you are sharing your document with visitors (non-Google accounts) the notification is required to start the verification process.
- See Collaborate as a visitor section at support.google.com for details on the invitation and verification steps.
- Click Send.