Setting up Google Drive for your property photography workflow

Google Drive is the default file storage for most property photography businesses. It is cheap, familiar, and agents already use it. But without a clear structure, it turns into a dumping ground where nobody can find anything, files get overwritten, and your editor spends ten minutes per property just locating the right folder.

A good folder structure takes 30 minutes to set up and saves hours every week.

The folder hierarchy

The structure that works for most property marketing agencies is three levels deep: client, then property, then stage.

Photography/
├── Acme Estate Agents/
│   ├── 14 Oak Avenue, Belfast/
│   │   ├── RAW/
│   │   ├── Edited/
│   │   └── Delivered/
│   ├── 7 Elm Street, Belfast/
│   │   ├── RAW/
│   │   ├── Edited/
│   │   └── Delivered/
├── Premier Homes/
│   ├── 22 Church Road, Lisburn/
│   │   ├── RAW/
│   │   ├── Edited/
│   │   └── Delivered/

RAW contains unprocessed files straight from the camera. Never modify these directly. Edited is where your editor works. Delivered contains finished images, floor plans, and assets sent to the agent.

Anyone on your team can find any property’s files in seconds. It also makes quality control straightforward: review the Edited folder, approve, then move to Delivered.

Naming conventions

Consistent file and folder naming prevents confusion as your volume grows.

Property folders: Use the full address. “14 Oak Avenue, Belfast” not “Oak Ave” or “14 Oak” or “shoot_0347”. When you are searching for a property six months later, you will search by address.

Image files: Include the property reference and a sequence number. “14-oak-avenue-001.jpg” through “14-oak-avenue-025.jpg” is clean and sortable. Avoid spaces in filenames; use hyphens.

Date prefixes: Some businesses prefix property folders with the shoot date (2026-03-11_14-Oak-Avenue). This makes folders sort chronologically, which is useful if you review work in date order. It is optional, but once you choose a convention, stick with it.

Sharing permissions

This is where most businesses get it wrong. The default instinct is to share the whole Photography folder with everyone. Do not do this.

Editors need access to RAW and Edited folders for the properties they are working on. Share individual client folders or property folders, not the entire root. Give them Editor access so they can upload and organise files.

Estate agents need access to Delivered folders only. Share with Viewer access. They can download and use the images but cannot accidentally delete or modify your files.

Photographers on your team need upload access to the RAW folder for properties they have shot. Ensure they are syncing only the relevant folders, not your entire Drive.

Review sharing permissions quarterly. Former editors, freelancers, and agents you no longer work with accumulate over time. Revoke access you no longer need.

My Drive vs Shared Drives

If you are a sole trader or a two-person team, My Drive with shared folders works fine. The owner (you) controls everything, and you share specific folders with team members.

Once you have three or more people who need ongoing access, consider Google Workspace’s Shared Drives. These are owned by the organisation, not an individual. If someone leaves, their access is revoked but the files remain. Permissions are managed centrally rather than folder by folder.

Storage management

Google Workspace plans start at £5.50 per user per month for 30GB, scaling up to £13.60 for 2TB and £18.40 for 5TB. For a property photography business, storage fills up fast.

A single property shoot produces 2 to 5GB of RAW files. At 20 shoots a month, that is 40 to 100GB of new data per month from RAWs alone. Edited JPEGs are smaller but still add up.

Archive policy. Decide how long you keep RAW files. Most businesses keep them for three to six months after delivery. After that, delete the RAWs and keep only the Delivered files. This dramatically reduces storage consumption.

Offload to cold storage. If you want to keep RAWs long-term, move older files to a cheaper tier. An external hard drive or Backblaze B2 costs a fraction of Google Workspace storage per gigabyte.

Monitor usage. Set a threshold alert in Google Workspace admin so you know when you are approaching your plan’s limit, rather than discovering it when an upload fails mid-shoot.

Automating the structure

Creating the same three-folder structure for every property, every time, is tedious. It is also exactly the kind of repetitive task that should be automated.

Kerb Appeal auto-creates this folder structure when a new property is booked. The right folders appear in the right client directory, with permissions already set. No manual folder creation, no permission setting.

Whether you automate it or do it manually, the principle is the same: consistent structure, clear naming, controlled access. Get these right and your editing turnaround improves because nobody wastes time searching for files.