# How to Share a Google Colab Notebook — Link Sharing, Drive Permissions, and HTML Exports

Canonical: https://commareports.com/share-colab-notebook
Published: 2026-09-04

> Colab sharing runs on Drive permissions, so a reader still needs a Google account and the notebook may not include its outputs. What each option does, plus exporting an executed HTML copy anyone can open and comment on.

# How to share a Google Colab notebook

Colab's share button is a Google Drive share button. Everything confusing
about sharing a Colab notebook follows from that one fact.

## What the share dialog is actually doing

The notebook is an `.ipynb` file in your Drive. The dialog sets Drive
permissions on it:

- **Named people or groups.** They open it in Colab with their own Google
  account and their own runtime.
- **Anyone with the link.** World-readable. Anyone who receives or finds the
  URL opens the notebook, including whatever is in the saved outputs — API
  responses, sample rows from a customer table, a stack trace with a hostname
  in it. This is publishing.

Either way, the reader needs a Google account, and the reader gets a *notebook*
— code cells, a Run button, and the invitation to execute it. That is right for
a collaborator and wrong for a reviewer.

## The two things that surprise people

**The runtime is not shared.** Colab shares the file, not the VM. Two people
open the same notebook and get two separate runtimes with separate state. If
your reader hits "Run all," they need the data to be reachable from *their*
session — which, if it lives in your Drive or behind your credentials, it is
not.

**Outputs are whatever you last saved.** They live in the `.ipynb`. Clear
outputs before saving, or save mid-run, and the reader opens a notebook full
of empty cells and concludes it is broken. Colab's own settings can strip
outputs on save; check that before wondering where the charts went.

## When the reader is not a collaborator

Most sharing requests are not "help me edit this." They are "show me what you
found." For that reader, the code cells are noise, the runtime is irrelevant,
and the Google account requirement is a barrier for no benefit.

Export an executed HTML copy instead. From inside the notebook:

```python
!jupyter nbconvert --to html --execute --no-input \
    /content/drive/MyDrive/Colab\ Notebooks/analysis.ipynb \
    --output /content/report.html
```

`--execute` re-runs it so the outputs are current, `--no-input` drops the code
so it reads as a document. Then publish that file to a stable URL:

```python
import requests, os
html = open("/content/report.html").read()
r = requests.patch(
    f"https://commareports.com/api/v1/reports/{os.environ['REPORT_ID']}",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['COMMA_API_TOKEN']}"},
    json={"title": "Churn analysis — March", "html": html},
)
r.raise_for_status()
```

Store the token as a Colab secret rather than pasting it into a cell — a
notebook you are about to share is the last place to hardcode a credential,
and a [scoped token](/agents/scoped-tokens-for-ai-agents) limits the blast
radius if it leaks anyway.

## What the reader gets

A URL that opens in any browser with no Google account, no runtime, no Run
button. Charts stay interactive if they are Plotly, Bokeh, Altair or folium —
that behaviour is client-side JavaScript, so it survives the export as long as
the library is embedded rather than linked to a CDN.

Access is a setting on the report — [private, team, domain-gated or
link](/docs/sharing) — so "anyone at my company" is a real option instead of
world-readable-or-invite-list.

And there is somewhere to put the discussion. A reviewer highlights the
regression table and pins "this drops the two outlier accounts, worth stating
in the writeup." That thread stays attached as you re-run and PATCH new
revisions, which is the part a Drive share has never had — Colab comments
attach to cells that move, and they disappear entirely from any export.

## When to just share the notebook

Share the Colab link when the other person is going to *edit* — a co-author, a
student, someone debugging with you. Colab is very good at that, and no
exported document replaces a live runtime for collaboration. Publish an export
when the audience is reading, reviewing, or approving, which is most of the
time.

## Try it

Comma is free — unlimited reports, unlimited commenters, unlimited revision
history.

**[Create your first report →](https://commareports.com/)**

### Related

- [Share a Jupyter notebook as HTML](/share-jupyter-notebook-html)
- [Share a Kaggle notebook](/share-kaggle-notebook)
- [nbviewer alternatives](/alternatives/nbviewer-alternatives)