How it works
Who can see it
Five settings, an expiry date, and a read-only switch.
The settings
- link
- Anyone holding the URL. Not listed anywhere and not indexed. This is the default.
- public
- Open to the web, and search engines may index it.
- domain
- Anyone signed in with an email address at a domain you name.
- named
- Only the addresses you list, signed in.
A public email provider is refused as a domain rule. "Anyone with a gmail.com address" is not a company — it is the open internet wearing a narrow-looking rule.
Two more switches
- An expiry date
- After it, nobody can open the document — not even people who could yesterday. Expiry beats every other setting, including workspace membership.
- Read-only
- People can open it but not comment. Existing threads stay visible. Useful for anything published to be read rather than marked up.
What readers need
Nothing, for public and link. The private settings ask the reader to sign in, because that is the only way to know it is really them.
Reading is free and always will be, whichever setting you choose.