Google Drive is a cloud based storage drive from Google.

When you use a traditional computer, your files are saved on a drive inside the computer. These used to be disk drives that spun around, but now are more likely to be Flash drives (like the little cards you put in digital cameras) with no moving parts.

How is Google drive different?

When using the drive inside your computer, the only way to access a file that is stored there is to use the computer itself to access it. If you lose or break the computer, the file is lost forever. If you save something on one computer you can't easily access it from another location.

Instead of being a small drive inside your computer, your Google Drive is part of a huge drive that is stored in one of Google's worldwide data centres. You still own and control the files you upload while Google manages. maintains and backs up the drive to keep your files safe.

In order to access your Google Drive, you can use any device - from any location, as long as you have an internet connection.

Does Google look at my files?

A person from Google does not read or check your files, or sell advertisements based on the contents of your Google Drive. They are as safe as any file you create on any computer.

So how does Google benefit?

Google hopes that you will upgrade for more storage space on Google Drive, search the internet using Google Search and use their other services such as YouTube. Google earns their money from subscriptions and advertising on its these services.

Working with files in Google Drive

• You can upload almost any file into Google Drive and download them onto your computer at any time. Most common files can also be viewed and edited in Google Drive without having to keep uploading and downloading them.

Inside Google Drive:

• • • • Google Docs is a word processor like Microsoft Word or Apple Pages.

      • Google Sheets is a spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel or Apple Numbers.

      • Google Slides is a presentation tool like Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple Keynote.

• When you work on a document inside the Google Drive you are working in the cloud. One of the main advantages of working this way is that other people can work together, at the same time on the same file as long as the file is shared with them.

Withing sharing permissions, you can also change ownership of the file. The owner is usually the person who uploaded the file to Google Drive or created the file within Google Drive. If you are the owner of a file, you can change the sharing permissions at any time. or even set a time limit on how long people can access files for.

Organising Files in Google Drive

Like a traditional computer drive, files in your Google Drive can be organised into folders. Files can be added to folders by:

• dragging and dropping into a folder

• right clicking a file and selecting move to

• clicking on the three dots and selecting move to

But wait... Just like sharing files in Google Drive doesn't really share them, moving files into folders doesn't really move them! Because Google Drive has to be accessed through the internet, every file has to have an internet address or URL (uniform resource locator). If we look at the following example: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qaCHzDEetJqPMxisxCcdiyHumdL2OeEYPYQJXFBEllA/edit you can see that the file is a document and you can edit it. If I moved this file into a different folder, the URL will not change.