Google Drive

Site out of date

Please note that this site is now out of date and has been replaced by Google Workspace: a Practical Guide. If you came here from a link, please update the link accordingly. If you have any questions, please email itsupport@york.ac.uk FAO the DISC team.

Overview

Google Drive has two main purposes:

It is used to create a range of online documents:

- Documents (Word processor)
- Presentations
- Spreadsheets
- Forms (linked to spreadsheets)
- Drawings

Drive is also used to help manage, organise and share online and uploaded resources

Items on Drive can be added to Folders and shared with individuals and Google Groups.

Other document formats can be uploaded to Google Drive (eg Word, PDF), and may be converted where a Drive equivalent exists; non-native file types count towards total storage, whereas Google file-types do not. Non-native documents must usually be downloaded for further editing, though an extension for the Chrome browser now enables editing of the content of Word documents without conversion.

Links

These can be uploaded to Google Drive (eg Word, PDF, Excel), and may be also converted where a Drive equivalent exists; non-native file types count towards total storage, whereas Google file-types do not.

Non-native documents must usually be downloaded for further editing, though an extension for the Chrome browser now enables editing of the content of Word documents without conversion.

Desktop Synchronisation

It is also possible to install a desktop synchronisation application. This 'mirrors' your Drive structure in a folder on your local PC and is an additional feature, not an essential. There are issues with using it on a University managed system due to differences in the potential capacities of Google drive and the University filestore. If you generally have reliable internet access, you may never need to make use of this.