Google Drive

For all Google Drive support - click the link for access to Google Drive Help

Google Drive

Google Drive or Drive is the main storage space for your documents. You can access this from anywhere in the world by logging in with your username and password through Glow / drive.google.com.

Storage Space

Google Drive gives you unlimited storage and you can access it easily in school and at home.

Files

Google Drive allows you to store any file type, even 'non-Google' files it doesn’t know what to do with. Some files can be used in Drive such as audio, photo, PDF or video files which can all be opened in Drive without having to download them.

Google Drive can automatically and quickly convert them in to G Suite documents. All your Word documents will change in to Google Docs, Powerpoints in to Slides and Excel files in to Sheets docs. If for any reason you might need to, you can also export Docs, Sheets or Slide documents in to their respective Microsoft Office version too.

When you create a new file in Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Sites or Jamboard then the files are automatically saved to Drive. Google saves your work in Docs, Sheets & Slides as soon as you do something so there isn’t a risk of you doing work and losing it if the computer dies for example.

To create a new file simply click My Drive and select the file type you want. Alternatively, click the +New icon (top left) and select the file type. The waffle bar (top right) of the screen also allows you to launch Google apps to create new files.

Viewing Preferences

There are two ways to view your files on Google Drive, firstly there is List View which simply displays your documents in a list. Secondly there is Grid View which shows your files in a grid, giving a thumbnail preview of that file. Each person will have a different preference but you can easily change what view you have in the top right corner of Google Drive by looking for one of the below icons.

Sharing Files

The default sharing settings for each file in your own drive is that it is private to you. You can give someone shared access to a specific file or a folder but you can’t give someone access to your whole drive space.

If you right click on a file or folder and click Share, you can then set options for sharing that item. If it is an editable file you can click the little icon of a pen and set it so the other person can either edit the file too or they can only view it and not make any changes.

Once you have shared the file with someone, in the List View it will show a little two person icon like in the example below to signify that it is a shared file. Files don’t show the sharing icon when in Grid View. Folders on the other hand do have a little icon of a person in the folder in both views.

Sharing Files

When in the sharing settings screen, a file can be shared in the 'people and groups section' by adding email addresses. Alternatively, click 'copy link' at the bottom right corner of the share screen, this provides an option to copy a link to the file instead of sending out invites. Using this option requires the link settings to be changed - click 'change link to Angus Council Schools and Learning' to ‘anyone with the link’ .

Shared Drives

Shared Drives are spaces where teams can store their files and guarantee that every member has the most up-to-date information, no matter the time or place.

Every person and group added to a Shared Drive gets instant access to all documents
Designed to store the team’s work collectively, so if a document’s creator moves off of the team that document doesn’t go with them
Team members prevented from accidentally removing or deleting files that others need

To find your Shared Drives, open Google Drive and look on the left, there will be a Shared Drives button.

For all Google Drive support - click the link for access to Google Drive Help

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