484-554-2234
 
Bethlehem, PA
  • Contact
  • ALL LINKS HERE
Lehigh Valley with Love
✕
  • CLICK HERE FOR NEW STUFF
  • LVwithLOVE Podcast
  • Blog
  • News
  • About
  • Newsletter
  • April Fool’s!

How to Get Started on Google Drive

Posted On August 18, 2017 By lvwithlove In Blog /  

This article first appeared on Northampton County Community College’s website.

Simply put, Google Drive is a free, easy to use, comprehensive cloud file service. It allows users  to create, organize, store, and share files in the “cloud,” which allows access across your desktop, phone, and other supported devices.  

Google’s free office productivity suite currently includes Google Docs for word processing, Google Sheets for spreadsheets, and and Google Slides for presentations.   Drive allows you to do work on your own computer at home, on the go, or on your computer at work and securely and safely share these files with anyone, even people who don’t have a Google account.

So, how do you get started using Google Drive? 

Google Drive is accessible via your web browser by visiting drive.google.com, iOS and Android apps, and various third party applications. All you need to get started adding to your Google Drive is a Google account.   You can even download Google Drive to your Windows or Mac desktop and it will act and look like any other folder on your computer, allowing you to drag and drop files and folders into it.

What can you store on Google Drive? 

Pretty much anything that you can store in the folders on your computer you can store on the drive. You should look at your Google Drive as a hard drive that is securely stored offsite for you to access whenever and wherever you need to, provide an internet connection, or cell service, is available.   For example, you may have a Google Drive folder where you store items from work that you may want to work on when you get home. Whenever you save these files, they are accessible from wherever you decide to work on them next.   Whether you’re saving Microsoft Office file extensions, PDFs, most typical image files (JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, and WEBP), video files (MPEG4, 3GPP, MOV, AVI, MPEGPS, WMV, FLV, OGG, and WebM), audio files (MP3, MPEG, WAV), Adobe Photoshop files, Apple Pages, Autodesk AutoCAD extensions, PostScript, and fonts, you’re covered by Google Drive.

Who can you share these files with?

You can share these files with anyone. Well, anyone who can receive an email. Say you save a text document and you’d like your sister in California to take a look over it before you email it. All you have to do is send her the link to the Google Drive file and she can review it, even make changes on her end, and then save the file back to your Google Drive.

How much does it cost? 

All Google accounts are given 15 GB for free, which is sometimes more than enough for many users. However, if you’re looking to use your Google Drive for more serious work, such as uploading videos for review, or even doubling as a back up folder for your main drive, you can purchase upgrades 100GB to 30TB of space.

Why Should I Use It?

If you find yourself sharing a lot of files via email, you may want to look at Google Drive as a better way to manage those files. For example, if you are working a document that may need multiple revisions before it can be submitted for approval, wouldn’t it be easier to work on one online-accessible document that can be continually changed rather than emailing multiple updated files that have to be saved individually each time?

In short, Google Drive is a fantastic way to improve file transfer among colleagues, or even a better way to organize the files you need to work on. Sure, there is a bit of a learning curve whether you’re using Google Drive on the web or as a downloaded app. However, Google prides itself on making its products user-friendly, so get started and share away.   Want to learn more about Google Drive and the Google Suite?  Join us for Introduction to Google Suite on Sept. 12.  To learn more and register, please click here.

Mr. Wacker is an adjunct computer professor at NCC and president of Lehigh Valley with Love Media, LLC.

 

Tags:
george wackergoogle drivelehigh valleynorthampton community college
Join Us at the Easton Riverside Festival of the Arts on September 16 & 17
The 2017 Musikfest Photo Scavenger Hunt Goes Live (Win Prizes)

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Archives

  • April 2025
  • March 2025
  • February 2025
  • January 2025
  • December 2024
  • November 2024
  • October 2024
  • September 2024
  • August 2024
  • July 2024
  • April 2024
  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • November 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • March 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • September 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015

Meta

  • Log in
All rights reserved.