The decision in one table
The choice comes down to who should lose access. Removing one recipient is a targeted edit; stopping the share is a reset of the whole sharing arrangement.
| Your intent | Use this control | What changes | What does not change |
|---|---|---|---|
| One invited person should no longer open the file, others should keep access | Recipient access controls | That recipient’s access is removed | Other invitees and the public link are not described as affected by this action |
| The public link should stop working | Stop sharing | The link is deleted and access ends for everyone, including email invitees | Copies already downloaded or saved elsewhere are outside this control |
| You want to end all sharing at once | Stop sharing | Everyone loses access through the share | The file itself remains yours in your drive |
| You are unsure who still has access | Review the share before acting | You can see the current arrangement first | This does not by itself prove who has opened or copied the file |
This table is editorial guidance built on the three platform facts below. It is not a description of a menu path, which this article does not verify.
Why the two controls are not interchangeable
Proton Drive treats the two access routes as separate settings rather than one combined permission.
Proton Drive manages email-invite permissions and public-link permissions independently. Source
That separation is the reason a single action does not automatically cover both routes. If your goal is narrow, a broad action can remove access you meant to keep; if your goal is broad, a narrow action can leave a route open.
Removing one invited recipient
Use the recipient-level control when the problem is one person, not the whole share. Common situations: a colleague has changed teams, an address was added by mistake, or a document should now circulate to a smaller group.
A specific invited recipient can be removed through the recipient access controls. Source
A practical checklist for this path:
- Write down who should still have access before you change anything.
- Identify the exact recipient entry you intend to remove, and check the address carefully, since similar addresses are easy to confuse.
- Remove that recipient through the recipient access controls.
- Re-check the remaining recipients against your list.
- If a public link is also part of the share, decide separately whether it should stay.
The last step matters because removing an invitation is not the same as closing a public link. Do not assume one action covers the other.
Stopping the share entirely
Use stop sharing when the document should no longer be reachable through this share at all, for example when a project ends or the link was sent to the wrong audience.
Stop sharing deletes the public link and removes access for everyone, including email invitees. Source
Because this action reaches email invitees as well as the public link, it is the wrong tool when you only want to trim one person from a group that should otherwise keep working. If the intent is to preserve legitimate collaborators, remove the individual instead and leave the share in place.
What neither control does
Both controls govern access through the share. They do not reach copies that someone already downloaded, forwarded, screenshotted or saved to another device. If a file is sensitive, treat any prior access as a possible disclosure and decide whether the document’s contents need to change, not just its permissions.
Neither control is described here as producing a notification to the people affected, an audit log of who opened the file, or a way to confirm that a recipient deleted their copy. Those points are unverified in the sources used for this article, so plan on the assumption that removed access is not the same as recalled content.
A short pre-change checklist
- Name the outcome: one person loses access, or the share ends.
- List the people who should keep access, and compare it with the current recipient list.
- Check whether a public link exists as a separate route.
- Choose the narrowest control that achieves the outcome.
- After the change, re-check the remaining access rather than assuming it.
- If the file contains material you would not want circulated, decide separately whether it needs to be replaced or withdrawn.
If you are still mapping who can reach a shared document, a related walkthrough on reviewing who can open your shared Google Drive files covers the same question of access routes in a different product.
Where this guidance stops
The exact screens, labels and steps for reaching these controls are not established by the facts used here, so this article does not describe a menu path. Open the file’s sharing settings in Proton Drive and look for the recipient list and the share-level option; if the labels differ from the terms used above, rely on what the interface shows rather than on this article.
The distinction to carry away is simple: removing a recipient is a scalpel, and stop sharing is a switch. Pick the one that matches who you actually want to lose access.