Find File Owner

Find File Owner

• API documentation
• Definitions
• Display File Ownership
• Display File Ownership for Old files

API documentation

• Reports API - Activities

Definitions

<DriveFileID> ::= <String>
<DriveFileName> ::= <String>

Display File Ownership

These commands use the Reports API audit activity and may not find the owner if the file has not been accessed in 180 days. If you specify a <DriveFileID>, there will be at most one line of output. If you specify a <DriveFileName>, there will be one line of output for each distinct file with that name.

The Reports API calls are:

• ownership <DriveFileID> - gam report drive filter "doc_id==<DriveFileID>"
• ownership drivefilename <DriveFileName> - gam report drive filter "doc_title==<DriveFileName>"

gam show ownership <DriveFileID>|(drivefilename <DriveFileName>)
        [formatjson]

By default, Gam displays the information as a list of keys and values.

• formatjson - Display the output in JSON notation

gam print ownership <DriveFileID>|(drivefilename <DriveFileName>) [todrive <ToDriveAttribute>*]
        (addcsvdata <FieldName> <String>)*
        [formatjson [quotechar <Character>]]

• addcsvdata <FieldName> <String> - Add additional columns of data from the command line to the output

By default, Gam displays the information as columns of fields; the following option causes the output to be in JSON format.

• formatjson - Display the fields in JSON format.

By default, when writing CSV files, Gam uses a quote character of double quote ". The quote character is used to enclose columns that contain the quote character itself, the column delimiter (comma by default) and new-line characters. Any quote characters within the column are doubled. When using the formatjson option, double quotes are used extensively in the data resulting in hard to read/process output. The quotechar <Character> option allows you to choose an alternate quote character, single quote for instance, that makes for readable/processable output. quotechar defaults to gam.cfg/csv_output_quote_char. When uploading CSV files to Google, double quote " should be used.

Display File Ownership for Old files

If the above commands fail, you can try to loop through all accounts, however this might take a long time if you are on a large Google Workspace Account. If any lines are displayed, the file owner is in the owners.0.emailAddress column.

gam config auto_batch_min 1 multiprocessexit rc=0 redirect csv - multiprocess redirect stderr null multiprocess all users print filelist select id <DriveFileID> fields id,name,owners.emailaddress norecursion showownedby any
gam config auto_batch_min 1 multiprocessexit rc=0 redirect csv - multiprocess redirect stderr null multiprocess all users print filelist select name <DriveFileName> fields id,name,owners.emailaddress norecursion showownedby any