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Have you ever shared a Google Doc, Sheet, or Slide with your team for feedback and wondered who on your team has viewed the document? With the latest version of Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, you can easily track who has viewed your file even if they didn’t save, edit, or leave a comment, which makes collaboration even more effective.
Also, it can help ensure everyone has read a draft, terms and conditions, the latest submission, policies, procedures, or any other crucial document. If you don’t know how to do so, then keep reading because, in this article, we’ll show you how to see who accessed your Google Drive files (Docs, Sheets, and Slides) so you can improve your collaboration.
To track who has viewed your Google Drive files, the following are some prerequisites and limitations you should know about:
If you meet these prerequisites and share your files accordingly, you can easily track who has accessed your Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides.
Here are the steps you can follow to see who viewed your Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides:
The Activity Dashboard in Google Drive offers more than just a simple list of viewers for your files. In addition to the list of viewers, the Activity Dashboard includes several features that can help you keep track of how your files are being shared and accessed. These features include:
Now, let’s explore the functions of each of these additional features and how you can use them.
Under the “Viewers” section, the “Shared with” tab displays the list of everyone you’ve explicitly shared the file with. Additionally, you can use the Email column to send a reminder message to the participants.
The Viewer Trend section allows you to see the unique daily viewers for your file. You can choose a specific day on the column chart to see how many viewers accessed the file that day.
In this section, you can see the total number of comments made on the file and the trend over a specified time. You can choose a different period using the drop-down menu on the top right of the screen.
The sharing history section lets you track when and with whom you shared the file.
Under privacy settings, you can toggle on/turn on the viewing history for a specific file (using Document Setting) or all files (using Account Setting). If you turn it on, the Activity Dashboard will not display your view history.
If you’re not seeing any viewing activity on your Google Drive files, and you believe you should, there could be several reasons for this, such as:
Here are two potential solutions that you can consider to resolve this issue:
As an administrator for the Google account, you can verify that the View History is turned on for the Google Drive files. Here’s how you do so:
Additionally, you can allow other users to see Viewers and Viewer Trends in the Activity Dashboard by turning on Access to View History.
If you want to display your View History or for others you expect to review the document to display theirs, you can enable View History for individual or all files. To do this:
If you want to track the changes made to your Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides, follow the instructions below:
You can also choose to view the previous version of the document before the edits were made. This feature is useful if you need to roll back changes or compare different file versions.
To check who has shared your Google Doc, Sheet, or Slide with others, you can easily find out by following these simple steps:
Note: To check the “Version” and “Sharing” history of your google drive files, you don’t need a Google Workspace account, which means it works for personal Google (Gmail) accounts.
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If you are using a Google Workspace business edition, your file is a Google Doc, Sheet, or Slide, and the viewer is signed in with a Google account. You can view the viewers’ list and their last access time through the Activity Dashboard (you can find it under the “Tools” dropdown menu).
When you share Google Docs with an open link, you may not see the names of people who have viewed it. Instead, they will show up as anonymous animals when they are in the file. However, if you have invited people individually, their names will be displayed when they are in the file.
To see the activity on Google Drive, select the file or folder you want to check, click on the information icon “i” in the top right corner, and then select the “Activity” tab. It will show you a list of activities on that particular file or folder.
You can use the Activity Dashboard feature to view viewer history in Google Sheets. Simply open the Google Sheet and select “Tools” from the top menu, then choose “Activity Dashboard”. From there, select “Viewers” on the left-hand menu to see a list of everyone who has viewed the sheet, along with the date and time of their last access.
To hide your viewing history, go to “Activity Dashboard” and select “Privacy Settings” on the left-hand menu. Then, turn off the toggle for “Document setting” to hide your viewing history for the current document.
Viewers can see the version history if they have edit access to the document. However, the users with view-only access will not be able to see the previous versions of the document.
To control who can access your Google Drive, you can set up sharing permissions using the “Share” button on the top right corner of the screen. You can share files and folders with specific people or groups and control their access rights (view, comment, or edit). You can also revoke access at any time.
People who shared the google drive with you cannot see if someone has copied it or not. Google doesn’t notify you if anyone downloaded it or copied it.
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