Manage Your Files
in Google Drive

Manage your files in Google Drive

Google Drive lets you create, update and share your documents all in one consolidate place. Share resources and learning materials with your teacher and collaborate with your peers.

Use Google Drive to create a document

Now that you’ve learned how to consolidate and organize your files and folders using Google Drive, learn how to use Drive to create, update, and share documents.

You can create a new document, spreadsheet, presentation, form, or drawing by clicking the New button in Drive.
Then, select the type of file you wish to create Doc, Sheet, Slide, or more. Give your new file a name, and it will automatically be saved in Drive.

Share files and folders

With Google Drive, sharing files and folders with peers and your teacher is easy. You can share any document in Drive with an individual or group of people by clicking the Share button in the upper right-hand part of the screen. You can also share a document directly from Drive by right-clicking on the file, then clicking Share.

If you’ve created a folder with multiple lesson activities you’d like to share, right-click on the folder, then click Share to share it with an individual or group.

Convert your files

Many of your existing files, like documents or worksheets, might have been created using the applications on your classroom computer, like Microsoft Word or Pages for Mac.

In Google Drive, you can upload a variety of file types, including Microsoft Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations.

After you’ve uploaded a Microsoft Word document to Drive, you may want to change it or add to it later. Instead of downloading the file to your computer, you can continue working on your document from Drive, by converting it into an editable document in Google Docs. To convert a file, right-click on the title in your Drive list and click Open with, then click Google Docs. Once you’ve converted your file, you can start working on it from Drive right away.

To streamline this process, change your settings in Drive so that it converts files automatically when you upload them. If you don’t find this useful, you can always change your settings back to not converting the files by unchecking the box.

Try it out

Change your Google Drive settings to automatically convert your files.

Open Google Drive.
Click the settings icon and then click Settings.
Check the box to Convert uploads to Google Docs editor format.

Here is an image of what your settings should look like:

Note: You can only change Google Drive settings from your computer and not with a mobile device.

Knowledge Check

To receive credit for this lesson, you will:

Create a new Google Docs document in the folder you created for this class in Google Drive
Name the document 1234

Note: You will share a version of this document in the next lesson. For now, you are only creating the file.

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Manage Your Files in Google Drive