Google Drive: Move v Copy operations
When migrating files between Google Drives, the primary differences between the Move and Copy operations are as follows:
Data fidelity:
Move: Data fidelity remains perfectly maintained with no formatting changes whatsoever. This is because we are not recreating the file, and are instead simply changing pointers on the server side to the original source file. Comments and revision history are fully maintained. Google proprietary file types are maintained. Files will no longer exist in the source Drives after migration and will instead only exist in their new target Drive.
Copy: Because we are migrating a replica of the source file to the target tenant, data fidelity is impacted. Native Google file types are converted to Microsoft format upon migration which results in fidelity loss. Comments and revision history are lost upon migration.
File ownership
Move: Transitioned to the new account.
Copy: Transitioned to the new account.
Users’ owned files
Move: Files in a users’ source Drive that are owned by the user will be moved to their target Drive.
Copy: Files in a users’ source Drive that are owned by the user will be recreated in the target Drive.
Sharing permissions
Move: Folder and file sharing permissions are preserved with select exceptions.
Copy: Folder and file sharing permissions are preserved with select exceptions.
Link permissions
Move: Sharing links are preserved and continue to work for recipients of the link. Because the file and URL remain the same, nothing changes for recipients.
Copy: Not supported for migration. Sharing links will need to be resent out to users after the migration (because Google doesn’t know who the links have been sent to).
‘Shared with me’ files
Files that are not in My Drive and instead appear in the ‘Shared with me’ folder.
Move: Not migrated by default.
Copy: Not migrated by default.
Unowned My Drive files
Files that are in My Drive but are not owned by the My Drive owner.
Move: Not migrated by default.
Copy: Not migrated by default.
Folder hierarchy
Move: Maintained if the number of nested folders (folder within a folder, within a folder, etc.) doesn’t extend beyond 20 nested folders deep. There is no limit on the number of folders, but the depth of nested folders is capped at 20.
Copy: Maintained.
Supported Drives
Move: User (My) Drives to User (My) Drives, Shared Drives to Shared Drives.
Copy: User (My) Drives to User (My) Drives, Shared Drives to Shared Drives.
Advanced details
The following documentation provides granular details related to preserving file and folder sharing permissions during migration. This documentation includes scenario specific examples that define expected behavior for select common and edge cases.