The shared band Google Drive (and its one password)

The short answer: a shared drive on a shared login gives the whole band one identity - one password in the pinned message, one phone getting the two-factor prompts, no way to remove a former member without locking everyone out. A band workspace gives each person their own account with access you can grant and revoke individually. BandVolt does exactly that, free on the Basic tier.

At some point most bands create it: thebandname@gmail.com. One Drive, one password, pinned in the group chat. It feels organised. For a while, it is.

Then the cracks show up - and they are all the same crack: five people, one identity.

”Can someone approve my login?”

Turn on two-factor authentication - which you should, because the password is sitting in a group chat - and every sign-in from a new device fires a prompt at whichever phone the account considers home. The drummer is at work; the singer is at the studio trying to open the stems; the chat fills with “can you approve the Authenticator request?”

Skip two-factor and you have a shared password protecting your band’s entire catalogue. Neither option is good, because the real problem is upstream: it should never have been one account.

In BandVolt, every member has their own login. Nobody approves anyone else’s sign-in, and nobody’s personal Google account is welded to the band.

When someone leaves the band

Lineups change. With a shared login, an ex-member walks away knowing the password to everything - so now you rotate it, re-pin it, and re-break everyone’s saved sessions. With individual accounts, you revoke one person’s access and you are done. Invites work the same way in reverse: the new bassist gets their own account by email, not the keys to a shared identity.

A drive doesn’t know what a song is

Even with the login solved, a drive is a filing cabinet. It cannot tell Anthem_final.wav from Anthem_final_v2_ACTUAL.wav, it plays audio through a bare preview player, and feedback happens somewhere else entirely. One well-meaning tidy-up of the folder structure and every link the band ever shared points at nothing.

A band workspace is organised by what things are: songs with labelled, dated version histories and waveform playback; comments pinned to the second they refer to; setlists, calendar, and finances alongside. There are still folders for the rider and the press shots - but the music is not filed, it is versioned.

Where a drive is still fine

Lyric documents, admin spreadsheets, the poster your mate designed - a personal drive handles general documents well, on your own account. It is the shared login and the music that need to move.

Give every member their own key - free on the Basic tier, no credit card required.