Can Guests Upload to My Google Drive Without an Account?

No. Uploading a file to a Google Drive folder requires the uploader to be signed in to a Google account, even when the folder is shared with anyone who has the link. Drive has no native file request feature, so there is no setting that turns this off on a personal account.

This catches people out because the folder itself can be made completely open. The openness applies to the folder, not to the uploader.

What sharing a folder actually grants

To let someone add files, you set their permission to Editor. Editor access is granted to a Google account, which means the person adding a file has to be signed in to one before Drive will accept it.

Viewer access is different and works for anyone with the link. So the same asymmetry as Google Photos applies here: looking is open, adding is not.

The Google Form detour does not help

The usual next idea is a Google Form with a file upload question, pointing at your Drive. It does not solve the problem. Google requires anyone answering a form with a file upload question to sign in, because the upload has to be attributed to an account.

You also end up with files named after the form response rather than the guest, which is worse for a wedding album than it sounds.

The one exception, and its price

Google Workspace has a feature called visitor sharing that lets people without Google accounts work with shared files using a PIN sent to their email. It exists and it works.

It also requires a paid Workspace plan, admin configuration, and a PIN step for every guest. For a business sharing documents with a client, that is reasonable. For a hundred wedding guests standing at a reception, the PIN email alone ends the idea.

What each option requires

Approach	Guest needs a Google account	Guest needs to sign in
Shared folder, Viewer	No	No
Shared folder, Editor	Yes	Yes
Google Form with file upload	Yes	Yes
Workspace visitor sharing	No	PIN sent by email, paid plan

When a shared folder is genuinely the right tool

If you are collecting from your photographer, your videographer, or a handful of family members who all use Gmail, a shared folder is excellent. It is free, the files stay full quality, and everything lands in storage you own.

The problem is not the folder. The problem is asking a hundred people, most of whom you cannot chase, to sign in to something on the night.

The alternative, briefly

The other approach is an upload page that carries your Drive permission rather than the guest's. The host connects Drive once during setup, guests scan a code and upload, and the files arrive in the host's folder without any guest ever seeing Google.

That is how Glint works, and it is why guests need no account at all. The longer version, including what Drive access the app asks for and what it cannot see, is on wedding photos to Google Drive.

Whichever route you take, test it once from a phone that is not signed in to your own account. That single check surfaces the sign-in wall weeks before your guests would have found it.