Changing ownership of google drive file not working - Insufficient permissions for this file

Question

As a google driver user (using my gmail account) I want to transfer ownership of my uploaded files to another user (using their gmail account).

I found this handy tool: https://github.com/davidstrauss/google-drive-recursive-ownership , which makes this call:

service.permissions().update(fileId=drive_item['id'], 
    permissionId=permission_id, body=permission, transferOwnership=True).execute()

I've verified the fileId is correct and the permission_id is correct, along with the permission object that is being passed in as the body.

The code seems good, and it runs great against google drive "native" files (like the google docs and spreadsheets).

But when run against an uploaded PDF, this error occurs:

<HttpError 403 when requesting https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v2/files/0Bxz4bvKt4QekTWlUUHg0XzUydTa/permissions/18055737357773114524
    ?transferOwnership=true&alt=json returned "Insufficient permissions for this file">

Any ideas on why changing ownership of "native" google drive files works fine when using the 'update' method but changing ownership of uploaded files (like PDFs and docx files) doesn't?

Answer 1

Changing the ownership of non-Google docs within Google drive can only be done with a Google Apps account, not a regular Google account.

So in order for your script to work, you either need to use a Google Apps account for authentication or there's a few messy workarounds below;

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/drive/Hz1uUukwKmk https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/drive/VPhNE_HkGLs

Answer 2

Check whether it is a prevent flag issue . Right click and select shares and try to see if stops you from making any further shares to other people . A file that is shared with somebody with a setting that people with whom it is shared with cannot share it , then you will get insufficient permission errors .