While sending out emails to your colleagues or customers, you can attach files and images to share the appropriate information to cater to their attention. But if the files are too bulky, you may not be able to add them directly to your email. Google Drive enables link sharing for media and document files allowing you to share files of sizes more than 25 MB.

With this attachment link feature enabled, you can add files and photos bulkier than the size limit permitted by Gmail in your emails. It would also allow you to collaborate with your co-workers to work on the same file without re-sharing it again. Follow this article about enabling link sharing in Gmail and various settings associated with file sharing through Google Drive.

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You might access your emails through your desktop or mobile phone. But that doesn’t limit your access to Gmail. Therefore, you have the freedom to enable drive link sharing for the files on either device. Here’s a quick peek at how to do it.

On Computers

Log in to your mail account on the Gmail website or log in through your Outlook desktop app on your desktop or laptop. Once logged in, follow the steps below to enable link sharing for google drive.

Step 1: Click on Compose in the top-right corner of the screen.

Step 2: Click on the Google Drive icon present at the bottom of the screen.

Step 3: A Google Drive file insert pop-up window will appear on the screen. Choose the files you want to insert and click on the Drive Link option.

Step 4: Finally, click on the Insert button.

It will insert the files as shared drive links in your email.

On Android Devices

Open the Gmail app on your mobile or tablet and replicate the steps given below.

Step 1: Tap the Compose icon. And now click on the Attachment icon.

Step 2: Tap on the Insert from Drive option, and choose the files you’d like to add.

Step 3: Click on Select to add those file links to your email. Once done, click on the Send button to forward your email.

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While you can attach the links for the shared files from google drive, you need to comprehend the sharing settings to address the documents rightly to your audience. Three distinguished settings of google drive permit a more comprehensive scope of security during file sharing.

Share with anyone who has the link: You allow everyone who can access the emails or who is a part of the conversation to access the files using the same permissions. However, you can review the permissions to view, comment, or edit the files anytime.

Share with specific email recipients: This setting allows you to limit the access to view and edit the files only for certain privileged users who will be your email recipients. The file remains private if the recipient doesn’t have a Gmail account or has received the mail through a mailing list managed outside google.

Share within your work, school or other organisation networks: Using an organisation mail, your admin can restrict the settings of which file types and to whom you can share the files. The permissions on your work or organisation emails may or may not allow you to share sensitive information outside their network.

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Get shareable links through Google Drive

As you know the permissions associated with file sharing links for google drive, you can now prioritise the recipient audience for your emails more methodically. To share the links through google drive itself, you need to follow the given steps.

Step 1: Open Google Drive on your browser and select the files you want to share.

Step 2: Right-click on the selected files and click on the Share option.

You get two tabs on your screen to share with people and groups and to get the link with specific permissions.

Step 3: Click on the Get Link tab. Choose the sharing permission as per your audience. The sharing permissions will update for the selected files.

Step 4: Once the permissions are updated, click on the Share with people and groups tab again. The link will automatically be copied to the clipboard. Add the email IDs of all the recipients in the Add people and groups field.