Google Drive, storage of files

This week I will be discussing Google Drive which is where folks store files including PDFs, Google Docs, Google Sheets, images (since some people used to utilize the automatic sync between Photos and Drive and allow those photos to get uploaded to Drive in their own special folder), videos, and you name it since Drive can hold files that are Word Documents (so ending with .docx) and other things that are not what I like to call a "native format." The native format files would be Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, and Google Forms. Anything else in drive would not be what I call a native format but their application was produced by another company for example Microsoft Word was designed by Microsoft, the company. Even before you open a file, usually the name of the file will give you some sort of clue of what is the format so ones that are native don't give you a format ending but if the file is an image, then the end could be something like .JPG or if it is a movie, the ending might be .MOV. Word Documents should have a W icon and then the file name will end with .docx. The complete list of what types of files that can be stored in Drive: https://support.google.com/drive/answer/37603

Files that are the native format do not take up storage however files that are ending with .MOV or .JPG or .docx do take up storage. A very good way to tell which files are actually taking up storage is by going to the bottom left of drive.google.com and clicking on " x.xGB out of 15GB used." The item that is .MOV in my Drive is 33MB whereas the images that are .JPG are 4MB. If I click on an item (so not to actually open it but to have it 'highlighted'), the bottom of my screen will tell where that file is located.

Inside of the screenshot you can see several other icons including a share option (+ next a head bust), get a shareable link (chain icon), preview (which allows you to see the file and the icon is an eye), and a delete button (the trash can icon). Also there are 3 vertical dots that produces even more options once you click upon it. The icon of the i inside of a circle will produce the history of that particular file you have highlighted so for example if I click on it, it will tell me when that file was uploaded inside of Google Drive.

On the left you might notice there are some options that are there regardless of where you might be inside of the Google Drive. New allows you to upload a document to Drive or to write up a new one in a native format.

Some files you can convert to a native format such as converting .doc and .docx to Google Doc: https://support.google.com/docs/answer/6055139 and this will even allow you to better interact with the file including editing it in real time. Once you are done in the native format, it is easy to then turn that format back into another format by clicking on 'file' then clicking on 'download' and a menu will show up to the direct right of the drop down menu that clicking on 'file' produces and you will get several options.

Other options that can show inside of Drive are "My Drive" and "Shared with Me." "My Drive" would be the files that you are the owner of and will take up space on your account depending on what is the format. "Shared with Me" are the files that other people shared with you and regardless of what is the format, it will not take up storage on your account. The option of "Recent" tells you the chronological order of when you had opened the files so even if you did not edit the file, the action of opening it up does record itself. If there is a size attached to that file, it will tell you that. "Starred" works relatively similar to Gmail where if you star a file, it will show up here so easier to find so for example if you have a bunch of files but use only 5 of them regularly, you can star them so they are easier to find them later. Trash tells you if there are any files you deleted and trash does not select delete either after a certain number of days like Gmail or Photos does so you do need to manually go into there to delete files from the trash bin. Also, note when a file is inside of trash bin, you can not preview it so you do need to restore it to see what is the contents with it. Backups will tell you if there are backups inside of the Drive but remember that for most backups, Drive is only the storage place not the place to actually view that backup. Information about backups because some people do wonder about WhatsApp for example: https://support.google.com/drive/answer/6305834.

The way I use a Google Drive was simply to store some files in it, which one of my Drives has accumulated images and the files that do take up space. My second Google Account's Drive has native format documents that are important and was wanting to place them in a Drive that does not have that many files so in some ways my second account can be like a backup account. In the second Drive, I do have a Sheets file, some Slide files, and besides the usual Google Docs files. Sheets would be equivalent to Excel Spreadsheets and Slides would be equivalent to Microsoft Powerpoints presentations.

This not quite about Google Drive but the device I have access to is a Chromebook and when you click on the "files" location on a Chromebook, you can see both "My Drive" and "Shared with Me" portion of Google Drive and you can see in what way Chromebooks have in its own special way "backup&sync" which means that Chromebook does not have that actual feature however Google Drive can show up inside of the "files" location and there can also be a Chrome OS Cloud Backup folder as well. But how to ensure things end up in that Chrome OS Cloud Backup folder would be following the instructions at https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/6206527?hl=en.