Google Drive is a place where you can safely store your files online and access them from anywhere. When you use Google Drive, your files are stored remotely on the Web instead of your computer's hard drive. This is the main idea behind "cloud computing".
Once your files are online and "in the cloud", you can access and edit them from wherever you are using any standard web browser. You can even use your smartphone or tablet computer to access your files on the go. You can also share your files with people that you choose, making it easier than ever to collaborate with others and get stuff done.
What kind of documents can you keep in Google Drive? Well, everything. You can keep photos, videos, PDFs, text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and more. Anything that you keep right now on your hard drive, you can store online with Google Drive.
Google Drive also includes an optional free sync program that runs on your computer and keeps files synchronized between a folder on your hard drive and Google Drive on the Web. That way, whenever you create or make changes to a file, either on the Web or on your hard drive, it will automatically be kept in sync between your computer and the cloud.
Working with files in the cloud is a little bit different from what you may be used to, but it is much more convenient. You can edit your files from anywhere and you can share and collaborate on files with other people. Importantly, your files in the cloud are safe if there is ever a problem with your hard drive. Here are some examples to give you an idea of the things you can do with Google Drive:
Create a presentation: Let's say you need to make a presentation. You create a new Google Slides presentation in Google Drive, get a rough draft of the slides in a reasonable shape, and share it with your co-worker. (With Google Drive, there is no need to e-mail versions of files around.) Your co-worker makes a few comments on your slides, and you make the recommended changes. Once you've given the presentation, you share it publicly so everyone has access to the slides afterwards.
Write a report as a group project: Your teacher or boss has tasked you with creating a report for a work or school project. The data is collected in a Google Sheets spreadsheet, with each person in the team adding their own data. They can even enter data using their phone or tablet, and with Google Drive, everyone can edit the spreadsheet at the same time—there is only one copy of the spreadsheet to keep up to date. Next, the entire team collaborates on the report, using Google Docs, with each person writing a section. And when you're done, you can convert it to a PDF file and share it with your boss or teacher for their review.
Work with Microsoft Office documents: Let's say a company that you work with uses Microsoft Office, and sends you a Microsoft Word document. You upload the document to a shared folder on Google Drive, where you and a co-worker review it and make a few changes to the shared copy. When done, you e-mail the revised version back to the person who sent it to you as an attachment, all directly from Google Drive.
Upload and share vacation videos: You just got back from vacation, and are eager to share videos of you learning to ski with your family. The videos are too large to e-mail. So instead you upload the videos from your camera's memory card into a new folder in Google Drive, and then share that folder with a few of your family members. They get an e-mail notification, click on the link in the folder, and are able to enjoy the moment when you got up on two skis for the first time. They can view the videos and photos right on their phone or tablet.
Keep a backup of your important files: You have several years of irreplaceable family photos, school projects, and home business records stored on your computer's hard drive. Because hard drives can fail, you want to back these files up. So you download and install the Google Drive sync program, which then automatically uploads and syncs files and folders of your choice to the cloud. If something ever happens to your computer, your cloud backup is there for you in Google Drive.
As you can see, with Google Drive, you aren't limited to just built-in document types (such as Google documents, spreadsheets, and presentations). You can open, view, share, and comment on almost every type of file such as PDFs, Microsoft Office files, photos, and videos. And with third-party add-on programs, you can go beyond viewing and actually edit special types of files such as Microsoft Office documents, all online from any web browser, phone, or tablet computer.
Getting started with Google Drive is easy and free. All you need is a Google account and an Internet connection. You may already have a Google account (for example, an e-mail address ending in gmail.com), and if not, creating one is easy. Note that you can use any e-mail address, not just those ending with gmail.com for your Google account.
To get started, simply visit Google Drive on the Web with your web browser at https://drive.google.com/. From there, you can log in with your existing Google account or create a new one.
You don't have to make the switch to the cloud all at once. You can start using Google Drive for creating new documents here and there, or you can upload files one at a time as you need them in the cloud. Alternatively, download the sync program to automatically keep large amounts of folders and files in sync between your computer and Google Drive. Whether a little or a lot, it's up to you how much you use Google Drive.