Why Your Google Drive Link Says "Request Access" (And How to Fix It)

The Problem in Plain English

"Request access" is Google Drive's way of telling your recipient they don't have permission to view the file. But here's what makes it maddening: you set the link to "Anyone with the link can view." You're sure of it. You checked. And yet — your client still hits a wall.

This happens more than it should. And in 2025, Google made it worse with a round of permission changes that quietly broke sharing settings that had worked for months.

Here's what's actually going on.

The Five Reasons It Keeps Happening

1. Your organisation's admin has restricted external sharing

If you're on Google Workspace — a paid business or school account — your admin controls the sharing ceiling. Even if you set a file to "Anyone with the link," if your admin has set the organisation-level policy to "Only people in [your org]," your individual setting is overridden. The most restrictive policy always wins.

You won't see a warning. The link will look fine on your end. It won't work on theirs.

2. You're sharing from a Shared Drive, not My Drive

Files in Shared Drives have different sharing rules than files in My Drive. Shared Drive permissions are managed at the drive level, not the file level. If the Shared Drive is set to restrict external sharing, your file inherits that restriction regardless of what you do at the file level.

3. Google's September 2025 permission update changed how inherited access works

In September 2025, Google changed how restricted access works on files inside shared folders. Files that previously had individual access settings started behaving differently, with folder-level permissions taking precedence in new ways. If your sharing worked fine before late 2025 and broke since, this update may be why.

4. You shared with a specific email instead of "Anyone with the link"

If you entered your client's email address instead of using the general link option, the link only works when they're logged into that exact Google account. If they click it from a different device, browser, or account, they hit the access wall.

5. Your recipient is logged into the wrong Google account

If your recipient has multiple Google accounts — personal and work are common — their browser might be logged into an account that doesn't have access. The link works, but the wrong account is trying to use it.

The Quick Fixes (In Order of Likelihood to Work)

Fix 1 — Change to "Anyone with the link"

Right-click the file → Share → Click the dropdown that says "Restricted" → Change to "Anyone with the link" → Set to Viewer → Copy link.

If this is greyed out or not working, your admin has restricted it — go to Fix 3.

Fix 2 — Tell your recipient to try incognito mode

Open an incognito/private browser window and paste the link. This bypasses the multiple-account problem. If it works in incognito, they were logged into the wrong account.

Fix 3 — Move the file to My Drive

If the file is in a Shared Drive with restricted external sharing, download it, re-upload to My Drive, and share from there. Less elegant, but it works.

Fix 4 — Share directly to their email

Go to Share → type their email address → set to Viewer → Send. They'll get an email invitation. This bypasses the "Anyone with the link" restriction but requires them to be logged into that specific Google account.

Fix 5 — If your admin has locked it down, you can't fix it yourself

You'll need to contact your Google Workspace administrator and ask them to enable external sharing, or use a different tool entirely.

The Permanent Fix: Stop Using Google Drive for External Sharing

Every workaround above is fragile. Your admin changes a policy — broken again. Google updates how permissions inherit — broken again. Your client uses a different device — broken again.

The permanent fix is using a tool where recipients never need an account, never hit a permission wall, and never need you to troubleshoot anything.

SimpleDrop works the opposite way to Google Drive. You sign up once. Every file you share goes out as a clean link. Your client clicks it and gets the file — no Google account, no permission settings, no "request access" dead ends.

And when they open it, AI has already read the file. They can ask questions about the document, get summaries, find specific information — before they even download anything.

Use Google Drive for internal storage. Use SimpleDrop for anything that needs to reach a client cleanly.

Obviously.

Try it at simpledrop.zip.