accessing "Shared with me" with Colab

Question

I want to get access to the files in the Google Drive's "Shared with me" directory.

In the Colab python notebook the following commands:

import os from google.colab import drive drive.mount('/content/drive') !ls "/content/drive/My Drive" 

work well for "My Drive" directory however

!ls "/content/drive/My Drive" 

fails with

FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory:

I am aware of the fact that I can add the folder to my drive manually and proceed (as mentioned in here), but I would like to have direct access to the shared folders for lets say I might need to automate the work with files that are shared with me real time.

I am also aware that same/similar problem exist with other cloud platforms like "OneDrive".

The questions are:

1. if there is no straightforward way of doing it, is there at least a workaround?
2. do the people I share my code with get access to my drive too?

Answer 1

Another work around is go to Google Drive, right click on the folder in question, and then click "Add shortcut to Drive". This will allow you to access the folder from your drive!

Answer 2

RE: Is there a work-around --

Load your shared files in the web UI, right click on the directory of interest, and select 'Add to my Drive'. Then, the folder will appear in /content/drive/My Drive as you hope.

For context, Drive isn't like a normal filesystem: files and directories can have multiple parents, thereby appearing in both your file list and the original owners.

RE: Will other users have access to Drive files? --

No, the notebook is a distinct object in Drive with distinct Drive permissions.