Google has taken another step in its security update for Drive, its cloud storage system, which will change the file sharing links available until now. The company is notifying personal and business Gmail accounts that the format of links will be changed, and that some uploaders may lose access to previously generated URLs.

The measure is part of a security policy, announced in middle of last week, which should come into effect automatically by September 13th of this year. At the end of the notification, Google provides a link for users to check which files from their uploads have already been affected.

The update will allow users to review their Google Drive sharing links and ultimately give them two options: apply the update to all impacted files or remove it. Accepting the update will disable long URLs and require an access key. Removing files from the list will keep the links as they are. Users will also have the option to click on each file they don’t want to apply the update to.

Google recommends leaving out the new standard for links to files that are constantly publicly accessible. This is because the change will insert a password at the end of the URL, the so-called “ResourceKey,” a sequence of alphanumeric characters, and may result in a blackout of public links.

Users will retain access to old shared files

The Drive security update will not remove access to previously accessed files or files shared via Google accounts. In practice, what changes is the insertion of the ResourceKey at the end of the links. In business account ecosystems, there is the option for each user to manage their own files and decide whether or not to accept the change.

Through which channels you reach those people, classic and out of the box. 9to5Google