Google Drive

Google Drive is a file storage and synchronization service created by Google. It allows users to store files in the cloud, share files, and edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations with collaborators. Google Drive encompasses Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, an office suite that permits collaborative editing of documents, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings, forms, and more.

Google Drive was launched on April 24, 2012 and had 240 million monthly active users as of October 2014.

Client

For Google Drive to synchronize files between the user's computer and Google Drive storage, the Google Drive 'client' software must be running on the user's computer. The client communicates with Google Drive to cause updates on one side to be propagated to the other so they both normally contain the same data.

Google Drive client software is available for the following devices: PCs running Windows XP, Windows Vista,Windows 7, and Windows 8 with NTFS partitions, or Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) or higher; Androidsmartphones and tablets with Android 2.1 (Eclair) or higher; iPhones and iPads with iOS 5.0 or higher. Newest iterations of Google Drive client software do not appear to work properly under Snow Leopard (OS 10.6), returning a bad GPU message and not allowing the user to access the minibar icon. Replacing the newer client with an older version appears to fix the problem although automatic updates may mean its recurrence.

Even though there is no official client software for Linux, Google Drive can be mounted directly to a Linux file system using gdrivefs or google-drive-ocamlfuse, which are FUSE based file systems backed by Google Drive. Google Drive can also be accessed through Linux via open source projects such as. Google developer Burcu Dogan and community members have created an easy to use client called. Google indicated in April 2012 that work on Linux client software was underway, but there was no news on this as of November 2013. In September 2015, GNOME added native built-in support with the release of version 3.18.

Sundar Pichai of Google said that the Google Drive online storage service would be tightly integrated with Chrome OS version 20.

Google Drive can be accessed offline on the Google Chrome browser via a Chrome app, which can be installed from the Chrome Web Store. Documents, spreadsheets, presentations and drawings can also be viewed and edited offline through standalone Chrome apps. The Google Drive app for Android and iOS supports offline viewing of all file types. Offline editing for documents and spreadsheets is supported through standalone mobile apps.

Storage

Google gives every user 15 GB of online storage space, which is shared across three of its most used services: Google Drive, Gmail, and Google+ Photos, previously, Picasa Web Albums. Users can upgrade their free 15 GB account through a paid monthly subscription plan to get more storage. Documents using Google Docs native formats (including .gdoc, .gslides, and .gsheet) do not count towards this limit. In Google+ Photos, photos of dimensions less than 2048 x 2048 pixels and videos shorter than 15 minutes also do not count towards this limit. Uploaded files in Microsoft Office and OpenDocument formats (with possible formatting changes) can be converted to Google's proprietary formats, and thus can be stored without counting against the storage limit.

As of 13 March 2014, storage plans offered by Google:

Storage	Price
15 GB	Free
100 GB	$1.99 per month
1 TB	$9.99 per month
10 TB	$99.99 per month
20 TB	$199.99 per month
30 TB	$299.99 per month

Google offers 30 GB of Drive storage for all Google Apps users, and unlimited storage for those using Google Drive for Work or Google Drive for Education, as long as there are at least 5 members. Associations with less than 5 members get 1 TB per user. Varying levels of free additional storage is offered on the purchase of select Android devices from Motorola and HTC, Kensington devices and Chromebooks.

By default, storage purchases are automatically set to renew at the end of the subscription. If the auto-renewal fails, a 7-day grace period is offered for users to update their payment information. When the storage plan expires or is cancelled, storage limit is set back to the free level. Users can still access all their content, but will not be able to add anything new over the storage limit. At any point during the subscription, users can upgrade to a larger storage plan, but can downgrade to a smaller plan only if they are under the 15 GB free limit.

Storage scheme revisions

Google Docs initially provided 15 GB of storage for free. On April 24, 2012, Google Drive was introduced with a free storage of 5 GB. Other aspects of the service were changed at the same time. Free storage for Gmail was increased from 7+ GB to 10 GB. Storage plans were revised, prices were increased and were charged on a monthly basis rather than on a yearly basis. As per the revised pricing, $2.49 per month was charged for 25 GB or $4.99 for 100 GB.

Originally, Gmail, Google Docs and Picasa had separate allowances for free storage and a shared allowance for purchased storage. Between April 2012 and May 2013, Google Drive and Google+ Photos had a shared allowance for both free and purchased storage, whereas Gmail had a separate 10 GB storage limit, which increased to 25 GB on the purchase of any storage plan. As of June 2013, both free and purchased storage is shared between all the three services.

In September 2012, Google announced that it was cutting the existing free storage from all paid users' accounts, so that a user buying a 100 GB plan will get 100 GB of total storage instead of it adding up to the free storage.

On May 13, 2013, Google announced the overall merge of storage across Gmail, Google Drive and Google+ Photos allowing users 15 GB of unified free storage between the services.

On March 13, 2014, the storage plans were revised again and prices were drastically reduced (by 80%) to just $1.99 per month for 100 GB or $9.99 for 1 TB. This was much cheaper than competitors Dropbox and OneDrive offered at that time. The 25 GB and 200 GB plans were discontinued and the 2 TB, 4 TB, 8 TB and 16 TB plans were replaced with 10 TB, 20 TB and 30 TB. Users were automatically upgraded to the new pricing scheme.

In most cases during these changes, users can continue with their existing plans as long as they keep their accounts active, and do not make any adjustments to the plan. However, if the account lapses or if the credit card is declined, users are asked to choose from the plans being offered currently.

Features

Sharing

Google Drive incorporates a system of file sharing in which the creator of a file or folder, is by default, its owner. The owner has the ability to regulate the public visibility of the file or folder. Ownership is transferable. Files or folders can be shared privately with particular users having a Google account, using their@gmail.com email addresses. Sharing files with users not having a Google account requires making them accessible to "anybody with the link". This generates a secret URL for the file, which may be shared via email, blogs, etc. Files and folders can also be made "public on the web", which means that they can be indexed by search engines and thus can be found and accessed by anyone. The owner may also set an access level for regulating permissions. The three access levels offered are "can edit", "can comment" and "can view". Users with editing access can invite others to edit.

Third-party apps

There are a number of external web applications ("apps") that work with Google Drive. These apps are available from the Chrome Web Store and are compatible with all supported browsers. To use an app, users are required to sign in into Chrome Web Store and add the app. Some of these apps are first-party, such as Google Docs, Sheets and Slides. Drive apps operate on the online files, and can be used to view, edit and create files in various formats, edit images and videos, fax and sign documents, manage projects, create flowcharts, etc. Drive apps can also be made the default for handling file formats supported by them. Some of these apps also work offline, although only on Google Chrome and Chrome OS. All of the third-party apps are free to install. However, some have fees associated with continued usage or access to additional features. Most Drive apps have the permission to access users' files outside of Google Drive. Saving data from a third-party app to Google Drive requires authorization the first time. The Google Drive SDK works together with the Google Drive UI and the Chrome Web Store to create an ecosystem of apps that can be installed into Google Drive.

In February 2013, the "create" menu in Google Drive was revamped to include third party apps, thus effectively granting them the same status as Google's own apps. On March 19, 2013, Google released an API for Google Drive that enables third-party developers to build collaborative apps that support real time editing.

File viewing

The Google Drive viewer on the web allows one to view the following file formats:

• Native formats (Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Drawings)
• Image files (.JPEG, .PNG, .GIF, .TIFF, .BMP, .WEBP)
• Video files (WebM, .MPEG4, .3GPP, .MOV, .AVI, .MPEGPS, .WMV, .FLV, .OGG)
• Audio formats (MP3, MPEG, WAV, .ogg)
• Text files (.TXT)
• Markup/Code (.CSS, .HTML, .PHP, .C, .CPP, .H, .HPP, .JS)
• Microsoft Word (.DOC and .DOCX)
• Microsoft Excel (.XLS and .XLSX)
• Microsoft PowerPoint (.PPT and .PPTX)
• Adobe Portable Document Format (.PDF)
• Apple Pages (.PAGES)
• Adobe Illustrator (.AI)
• Adobe Photoshop (.PSD)
• Autodesk AutoCad (.DXF)
• Scalable Vector Graphics (.SVG)
• PostScript (.EPS, .PS)
• Fonts (.TTF)
• XML Paper Specification (.XPS)
• Archive file types (.ZIP, .RAR, tar, gzip)
• .MTS files
• Raw Image formats

Files in other formats can also be handled through third-party apps that work with Google Drive, available from the Chrome Web Store. The Google Drive apps for Android and iOS can use other apps installed on the device to open unsupported file types.

File limits

Files uploaded, but not converted to Google Docs format, may be up to 5 TB in size. Created or uploaded files larger than 5 TB cannot be viewed within Google Drive. Embedded images must not exceed 2 MB each.

There are also limits, specific to file type, listed below:

Documents

1,024,000 characters, regardless of the number of pages or font size. Uploaded document files that are converted to Google Docs format can not be larger than 50 MB.

Spreadsheets

All the limits on spreadsheets have been removed in the newer version of Google Sheets. In the older version, there could have been a maximum of 256 columns per sheet and 200 sheets per workbook, with 400,000 cells in all. Uploaded spreadsheet files that are converted to Google Sheets format can not be larger than 20 MB, and need to be under 400,000 cells and 256 columns per sheet.

Presentations

Presentations created in Google Slides can be up to 100 MB – which is about 400 slides. Uploaded presentation files that are converted into Google Slides format can be up to 50 MB.

Search

Search results can be narrowed by file type, ownership, visibility, and the open-with app. Google Drive supports Boolean operators.

Using Google Goggles and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, users can search for images by describing or naming what is in them. For example, a search for "mountain" returns all the photos of mountains as well as any text documents about mountains. Text in the first 100 pages of text documents and text-based PDFs, and in the first 10 pages of image-based PDFs can be searched. Text in images and PDFs can be extracted using OCR.

Metadata

There is a Description field available for both files and folders that users can use to add relevant metadata. Content within the Description field is also indexed by Google Drive and searchable.

Google Drive does not currently support metadata in the form tags or labels, like Gmail and Google Keep do. Limited workarounds exist, like using the Description field, starring files and folders, changing folder colors and adding the same file to multiple folders.

Accessibility

On 25 June 2014, Google announced a number of updates to Google Drive, which included making the service more accessible to visually impaired users. This included improved keyboard accessibility, support for zooming and high contrast mode, and better compatibility with screen readers.

Additionally, the Google Drive web interface supports keyboard shortcuts.

Save to Google Drive

Google offers an extension for Google Chrome Save to Google Drive that allows users to save web content to Google Drive through a browser action or through the context menu. While documents and images can be saved directly, webpages can be saved in the form of a screenshot (as an image of the visible part of the page or the entire page), or as a raw HTML, MHTML, or Google Docs file. Users need to be signed in to Chrome to use the extension.