Google Drive allows you to create and manage files and folders in the cloud.
Using folders allows you to organize your content. To create folders:
Login to Google and access Google Drive.
You can create a folder in one of two ways; click on the + New button at the top left of the screen and select the Folder option, or click the drop down arrow next to the My Drive text and select the New Folder option.
Give your folder and name and click the Create button.
You can nest folders within folders using the same method. Before creating a new folder just enter the folder where you want to add a new folder. In Google Shared drives the limit on how deep you can nest is 20 folders deep. Note that is is not recommended that you create a file structure this deep. Keep things to 5 or 6 layers at most.
Google Drive allows you to create a number of different types of files. The most common, as with all office suites, are documents (Docs), presentations (Slides) and spreadsheets (Sheets). Other commonly used file type in Google Drive are "Forms" and "Sites". Forms allow you to create surveys for collecting data and sites allows you to easily create web sites for various purposes. Forms and Sites are beyond the scope of this section and won't be covered at this time.
The method is the same for creating any kind of file in Drive:
As with creating folders, the two methods are the same; click on the + New button at the top left of the screen or click the drop down arrow next to the My Drive text.
Mouse over the type of document you want to create. Click the type of document to create a new, blank copy of the document type selected.
The document will open in a new tab. At the top left of the new file is the title bar that will say "Untitled document type" where document type will be document, sheet or presentation. Always give your new files a name immediately.
If you want to use a template, mouse over the document type and then mouse over the arrow at the right side and select From a template. A new tab will open and you can select from any of the templates available on that page.
Google tracks every change you make to a document using its "Version History" feature. This is a bit different than "Track Changes" in a MS Word document and allows you to restore any document to a period in time from the past. The version history shows all of the changes made by you and any collaborators that might be working on a document.
To access the version history of any type of Google document click the All changes saved in Drive link at the top of the page. Once clicked a new sidebar appears on the right showing the different versions that have been saved. If there has been numerous changes in a short period of time, the version may have an arrow that point to the right on the left of the title or version date. Click on the arrow to expand the version to see an itemized description of every change.
To restore a version, click on the version you want to restore in the list and you will then see a large button appear at the top left of the screen that says Restore this version. Click the button and this version now becomes the current version.
Outside of Gmail, the central most app that holds everything together is Google Drive. Drive is the space in which all things Google are stored. You can create native Google documents in Drive but you can also store any type of file in Drive; MS Office documents, pdfs, images, videos, GPS formats etc.. Drive also provides unlimited storage while you are a student at UW.
This section covers how to upload and manage different types of files and discusses the types of files that can be converted to native Google formats.
Uploading files into your Google Drive can be accomplished in two ways:
Drag and Drop
Open the folder in your Google Drive where you want to upload files. Open the file manager on your computer, Windows Explorer on Windows and Finder on Mac, and just select the files you want to upload and drag them over the Drive window and drop them. As soon as you release the mouse button the files will start to copy. Drive will let you know when they have been successfully uploaded.
Use the File Picker
Open the folder in your Google Drive where you want to upload files. Click the + New button in the top left corner and select the File Upload button. The file manager on your computer will open. Search and select the file(s) you want to upload. You can upload a single file or you can use Ctrl+click and Shift+click (Windows), or Command+click and Shift+click (MAC) to select multiple files for uploading. Once your files have been selected, click open and the files will start uploading automatically. Drive will let you know when they have been successfully uploaded.
Certain types of files, mostly Microsoft Office files, can be uploaded in their original format or they can be converted to Google Drive's native format. There are two ways to handle the conversion into Google's native format, automatically using a setting and manually converting files one at a time.
Automatic Conversion - This method converts every Microsoft document to Google's native format every time they are uploaded. If you want Google to always convert them, use the "Convert uploaded files to Google Docs editor format" setting. To access this setting:
Click the settings cog icon in the top right of a Drive page.
Select Settings from the pop up menu.
In the Convert uploads section tick the box next to the Convert uploaded files to Google Docs editor format.
Click Done. Note that if you set this option, every Microsoft Office file will automatically be converted to Google's native format until you turn the setting off.
Manual Conversion - To manually convert an MS Office document into a native Google format:
Open the document that you want to convert (double click). Generally these will be Word, Excel and PowerPoint files.
Click Open with Google Docs.
You will know it is a MS Office file because the file type extension (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx) will appear just to the right of the file name at the top left of the page. To convert to Google's native format click File and then click Save as Google Docs.
The file will be converted and open in a new browser tab. When you go back to the file list you will now see the original MS Office document and the converted Google document.
Once you have uploaded or created documents/files in your Google Drive, you have two options for downloading them. You can download the original file or you can download it as a .pdf or some other format.
To download a single file, right click and click Download. Depending on your browser's settings it will either download automatically to your downloads folder or it will ask you where to download the file. If you select a file in Google's native format; docs, sheets or slides, Drive will automatically convert these documents to their MS Office equivalents and download as described above.
If you want to download multiple files at the same time, select the files using the same methods listed before, Ctrl+click and Shift+click (Windows), or Command+click and Shift+click (Mac). Right click and select the Download option or click the More actions menu (3 stacked dots) in the top right corner and select the Download option. Google will automatically add all of the files to a single .zip file and then download them to the appropriate location on your computer. Unzip the .zip file and you will now have access to all of the selected files.
Google Drive also has the ability to download your productivity style documents (office suite) as .pdf files. To download Google Doc, Sheets and Slides files along with MS Office Word, Excel and PowerPoint files as .pdfs,:
Open the document you want to download as a .pdf.
Click File and mouse over the Download option.
Notice that depending on the type of file, there are numerous different formats that you can use for downloading. Click the PDF Document option and Drive will convert the file to the PDF format and start the download process. As mentioned earlier, the file will download automatically or ask you to save in a different location.