In this video, I’m going to show you how to use Google Drive on Desktop in 2023.
And you know I’m including some of the best Google Drive features!
Hey friends!
I’m Tasia Custode and welcome back to my YouTube Channel where I share tech tips, app
reviews, and a frighteningly large amount of Google content.
Today is your complete Google Drive tutorial.
Let’s go!
Okay, I’ve made so many videos on Google Drive, but I find returning to the basics
every now and then to be super helpful.
So, if you’re new to Google Drive, let’s start with what is Google Drive.
Google Drive is a free cloud storage solution, where you can store, sync and share files
across devices.
If you’ve ever created or read a Google Doc, for example, you’ve already used Google
Drive.
I like to think of Google Drive as your storage garage where you keep all your docs, sheets,
slides, and so on.
So how do you access Google Drive?
There are actually multiple ways to access Google Drive.
I usually access my drive from my Gmail or my GCal.
It looks the same from either spot, so here we are in Google Calendar, and if we click
on google apps in the top right - it’s this square made of dots beside your profile - all
your google apps will pop up here, and you can click on Google Drive right from here.
Or you can simply open up your browser of choice and in your browser bar, you can just
type in drive.google.com, then hit enter and you’ll be taken to Google Drive, or you’ll
be prompted to sign in to your Google account if you aren’t already.
And just so you know, they have Drive for personal or business use, so for this video,
we are focusing on your personal Google account.
So now that we know how to access Google Drive, let’s take a look at the main layout.
So luckily for us, Google Drive’s layout hasn’t changed much over the last year.
Now, your drive may look a little different in this main section here depending on whether
or not you have created any files.
But, the basic layout should be the same.
We’ve got the navigation menu on the left-hand side.
Here, we also have the storage indicator.
So, this will tell you how much storage your plan has, how much you’ve used, as well
as a little button to buy storage if you need.
I’ve actually done a few videos before on how to clear up Google Drive storage as well
as what counts towards your Google Drive storage, so I’ll link to those below for you.
But back to your Google Drive layout.
At the top, you’ll have your search bar, where you can easily search for files and
folders.
And we’ll touch on some search functionalities a little bit later on.
And, the main section of Google Drive is this ‘my drive’ section.
As you populate your drive with files and folders, you’ll have those in this section
here, along with suggested files at the top.
These are typically files you’ve opened recently and/or often.
Now, if your Drive layout still looks different than what I’m showing, you can adjust your
layout using the option near the top right to switch to list layout or the grid layout.
It's a personal preference.
Higher up near the top right is where you’ll find your settings gear and to the right of
that is, of course, your trust Google Apps access.
So now that you’re familiar with the layout, let’s learn how to create a new file in
Google Drive and how to create a new folder in Google Drive.
As you might be able to guess, you can click on ‘new’ in the top left of your Google
Drive, and here, you’ll have the option to create a new folder, upload a file or folder,
you can create a google doc, a sheet, slides, or forms, and then you’ll have more options
underneath that as well.
Alternatively, you can also just right-click on any empty space in the main section of
your drive here to create new files and folders.
So, if you don’t have anything in your drive yet, a good place to start would be to create
a new folder.
Think of how you want to organize all of your files here.
So as an example for this video, I have created a YouTube Assets folder.
So go ahead and create your folder.
I’ll create a Client Outreach folder, and then hit create.
And bam, right here, under folders, you’ll have your new folder.
Now, if you are in list view, and I’ll toggle back to show you here, you will be able to
get a quick snapshot of the owner of the file, when it was last modified and by who, as well
as the file size, which is really handy.
I’m going to toggle back to my grid view.
So, if you want to upload a file that already exists on your computer, we’ll head back
to ‘new’ and select file upload.
Then, just select the file you want to upload and it’ll be added to your drive.
Essentially any type of file can be uploaded, a video file, pdf, image file, photoshop file,
and so on.
Plus you can upload multiple files at once by hitting control select or command select
on a mac.
And, just like you can upload a file, you can upload an entire folder as well.
But now let's create a file from scratch.
We will create a google doc as an example, and you can click on the google docs option,
or you can hover over the arrow to the right and you’ll have the option to create a blank
document or create a doc from a template.
And by the way, you can use templates for any of these Google Apps.
So this is the perfect opportunity to talk about the power of templates.
Though they’ve been around basically since the invention of Google Drive, templates remain
one of the best google drive features.
So, check this out.
Let’s click on the Google Docs template option.
A new tab opens and you can scroll through a boatload of doc templates like resumes,
letters, different types of project proposals, sales templates, legal templates, contractor
agreements, and more!
So, if you’re working on a newletter, just click that template and voila, the template
is automatically opened for you to edit.
You can edit anything and everything, from the title to the text, to colors, layout and
more.
So whether you create a new blank file or one from a template, this new tab is automatically
opened, where you’ll edit that particular file.
And now that you’ve mastered creating files, you’ll want to keep everything organized
in Google Drive.
And there are quite a few ways to keep everything neat and tidy.
So, first, from the new file you’ve created, at the top near your title, click the little
folder icon, select the folder you want to move it to, so we’ll select the YouTube
Assets folder I created, then click move.
Now back in my drive tab, I can open my folder, and voila, there's the doc I created.
But you can organize your files and folders right from your main Google Drive dashboard
too.
All you have to do is drag and drop your files into the folder.
And remember, like we learned earlier, if you’ve got a ton of stuff going on here
you can just right-click, create a new folder, then start dragging files into that new folder,
all right from here without leaving this page.
You can also right-click directly on a file or folder to not only move it, but to access
a whole whack of other features.
One of these features is the ability to to star a file.
Of course, we can do this from your opened file as well.
That’ll be at the top near your file name.
But, why click to open a file when you don’t have to?
Instead, we’ll right-click on the file, and star it from there.
And by the way, once you’ve starred something, it’ll be found in the starred section in
your google drive on the left-hand side.
But let’s look at all these options we have.
You can share it or make a shareable link - which I’ll go over in more detail in a
bit, show file location, move or favorite it, rename the file, copy the file, download
it to your computer, or this is how to delete a file in google drive.
There are so many features available with just a simple right-click.
Something else I like to do is color code folders.
So with that right-click on the folder, we can easily change its color.
I like having this quick visual cue for my organization.
And speaking of visual cues, something else you may have noticed is the different icons
for different files.
That’s a quick visual cue from Google showing you, without opening the file, whether it’s
a doc or a spreadsheet, a pdf, audio file, or whatever it may be.
So now let’s talk about how to share files in Google Drive, and set your desired sharing
permissions.
Remember how Google provides you with a visual cue as to what you’re looking at.
Well, if we go back to our list layout for a second, if you have this little icon with
a person in it by one of your files, that means it’s shared.
Now, there are multiple ways to share a file.
You can do it from the file itself when you’re creating it, or you can do it from your main
google drive.
So from the file itself, very quickly, you’ll just click on the share button near the top
right.
But back in our Google Drive, like I showed you before, you can right-click on any file
in order to share it, or if you click to select a file, in the top right of Drive you’ll
have a few new options.
If you click the person icon with a plus symbol, a sharing popup appears where you can add
the email addresses of those you want to share with.
You can add multiple people if you want and to the right of the person you’re adding,
you can set your sharing permissions.
You can allow them viewing access only, the ability to comment, or the ability to edit
the document just as you can.
Plus, you can write a little message for your collaborators too.
When you’re ready to share, just click send.
Now if you want to remove someone, you can do that too, you’ll head back to your sharing
permissions, and to the right of the email, you can transfer the ownership to them or
remove their access entirely.
If you don’t want to add people directly, you can also create a shareable link so only
people with the link can view the file.
Right click on a file, or with the file selected, just click the link icon in the top right
and in this popup you can copy the link as well as adjust the link sharing permissions
here too.
So, if you’re new to sharing and collaborating with people, you’ll definitely want to check
out my other video because I show you all the cool features of collaborating within
google drive.
But really quickly, while we’re going over some of these sharing options at the top,
let’s take a moment to highlight the detailed view.
With your file selected, you’ll have a little info icon.
If you click on this, a right-side panel will pop out, providing you with additional details
about the file or folder you have selected.
You’ll see who has access, the file size, and when it was created and modified, and
by who.
But, as promised, another feature I want to cover in this video is your search feature
in Google Drive.
Once you have a lot of files in your drive, you’re going to want to easily pull them
up, without scrolling through pages of files.
So, in the search bar at the top, type in whatever it is you’re looking for and voila
it’ll appear.
I use this all the time since in my other account I have all my youtube scripts, and
sometimes I need to pull an old one up quickly.
But, you can also access some advanced search features by clicking in the search bar and
selecting ‘advanced search’ from the dropdown, or by selecting the search options toggle
in the right of the search bar.
Here, you can narrow down what type of file or folder you’re looking for, you can select
the owner of the file, if you know the name or words found in the file you can add that
in, as well as a lot of other advanced search features.
It’s so handy.
Remember, if you want any more detail on really anything I’ve covered today, check out all
the links in the description below.
I’m telling you, a scientific calculation - there’s a metric ton of Google Drive links
in the description below.
Enjoy!
Well that’s my 2023 Google Drive tutorial for you, hopefully, you learned how to use
Google Drive.
Now I want to hear from you.
What do you love about Google Drive and what are some of your favorite features?
Let everyone know in the comments below.
And if you liked this video, I want to know so give it a like, a share or leave that comment
below.
You can click right about here to subscribe to my channel and here and here for more Google
Drive content.
See ya next time!