Google Drive: File Storage and Sharing Made Easy
Businesses use Google Drive to draft new blog posts, take meeting notes, share information with clients and more. A majority of our clients also prefer Drive to other file storage systems. Google Drive is fast, simple, and secure.
If you’re not already using Drive, here are a few more reasons why you should:
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Provides access using a computer, tablet, or smartphone.
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Auto-saves everything in the cloud – no need to worry about missing copies or forgetting to save.
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Includes 15 GB of storage for free, with room for expansion at a monthly rate.
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Allows owner control over who views or edits your documents.
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Grants Real-time collaboration with other people.
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Includes Google Drive Apps to extend features, such as sign documents, draw a chart or create a form.
Google Workspace provides hundreds of features to maximize productivity cost efficiently. The below guide focuses on sharing files using Google Drive.
How to Share Files on Google Drive
First, you need a Google account. Simply access Google’s Sign Up page to make a Gmail account. If your business already has Gmail, you’ll likely also have a Drive directory already set up. Every user starts off with 15GB of free storage but can expand to 100GB or 2TB for $1.99 or $9.99 a month respectively.
1) Select the level of access
Once you start a document, there are three levels of access you can grant to any file or folder: Can edit, Can comment, or Can view.
“Can Edit” user can:
- Make changes to the contents or the title of the document
- Share with other users
- Comment on files
- Save or download the file to a personal account
“Can Comment” users can:
- Suggest edits as highlighted changes that can be approved or rejected
- Comment on files
- Save or download the file to a personal account
“Can View” users can:
- Read the document
- Save or download the file to a personal account.
Once a person is given access to a file, they may also be changed from a viewer or editor to an owner of the file.
“Is Owner” user is the only one who can:
- Delete and recover the document (This option appears only after they are granted initial access)
- Disable download/print/copy options and prevent editors from changing access or adding new people
2) Share an email invite or a URL link
There are two ways to share your document: add each authorized user’s email in the box after hitting share, or copy a link that can be forwarded and opened by anyone who has the link.
Link Sharing
Links should be used only for quick sharing of non-confidential or non-sensitive information. Assume that anyone with a link might accidentally forward it to the wrong person and that a total stranger might be able to read it. If you want to avoid this, you can set specific access to people who have the link.
If you select the “More…” section in the viewer access drop down, a list of more options for link sharing appears, such as allowing only people from your organization to see it, or requiring only the link to access the document.
NOTE: Setting link sharing to “On – Public on the web” will set the document to be discoverable in Google’s search engine. Make sure this is what you want to do before saving with this setting.
Email Invites
Email invites are more secure as you retain control over who can access your document and what each person has access to do. After adding the recipient’s email, you can include a note to give that user some notice about an action they need to take, or a description of the document purpose.
Once you confirm the recipients, an email is sent to let them know you have shared a document with them.
3) Work on the same file at the same time
One of the most powerful features of Google Drive is the real-time collaboration across Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets. Instead of sending multiple versions of the same file back and forth, multiple people can edit simultaneously. One person can edit a document in Los Angeles, while another in Tokyo can see their edits as they make them.
Even if they’re not online at the same time, two people or a team can still see each other’s edits with the “suggesting” feature in the top right. Users can add comments, accept or reject changes, and even revert back to previous versions all the way to the beginning.
You can set the mode in the top right between:
- Editing – make direct changes to the document
- Suggesting – highlight, strikeout, change letters, and editors can accept or reject with check or a crosss button.
- Viewing – read or print access to the document.
Using and Sharing Files in Your Organization’s Google Drive
The above is just a sample of what is possible with Drive. You can modify it to include your brand’s document templates, or with HelloSign you can get people to sign proposals and other documents. If your team relies on publishing a lot of written content, Google Drive makes it easy to keep track of your history as well as communicating with your teammates.
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