Prereqs > 6 - Populate your Google Drive
If you have personal and business files you are going to put into Google Drive that aren't already there, now is the time to bring those in. The more practice you get with file manipulation in google drive prior to starting to build software with it, the better off you will be.
- Google Drive Sync - Pushing Data
- Uploading files directly - Pulling Data
- Google Drive Options
- Syncing delays... Pause and restart...
1) Google Drive Sync - Pushing Data
You will want to load google Drive Sync onto your machine. This is a small software package that creates a Google Drive folder on your machine and then monitors changes to files in the folder.
To get to the page to download this, you can click the Gear Icon in google Drive
To get to the page to download this, you can click the Gear Icon in google Drive
That will take you here... (you can also google "google drive sync" and find it)
https://www.google.com/drive/download/
I find this a little confusing because the page will say "Download Google Drive" -- what it really means is it will download the Google Drive Sync Software that will create google drive folder on your machine and install a services that monitors that folder for syncing purposes...
https://www.google.com/drive/download/
I find this a little confusing because the page will say "Download Google Drive" -- what it really means is it will download the Google Drive Sync Software that will create google drive folder on your machine and install a services that monitors that folder for syncing purposes...
Once you download it and install it, when Google Drive is running you will see the icon in the lower right hand corner (on a PC). It is the Green, Yellow, and Blue triangle.
The install will also create a folder on your machine called "Google Drive". This should show up like and work like a shared cloud drive folder just like DropBox, OneDrive and others. When you drag and drop things into that folder on your computer, they will sync up to the cloud storage first and then down to your other machines if they exist and are online.
NOTE: Google Drive can be a little slower with syncing than DropBox at times, and every once in a while the sync will burp. A very small trade off for what you get with Google Drive. It's not remotely the same tool as those systems. The syncing is a small part of Google Drive functionality where as it is everything for something like Dropbox.
POPULATE GOOGLE DRIVE: Drag files and folders into google drive and they will start uploading.
NOTE: Google Drive can be a little slower with syncing than DropBox at times, and every once in a while the sync will burp. A very small trade off for what you get with Google Drive. It's not remotely the same tool as those systems. The syncing is a small part of Google Drive functionality where as it is everything for something like Dropbox.
POPULATE GOOGLE DRIVE: Drag files and folders into google drive and they will start uploading.
To check on Sync status, single click on the drive icon in the system tray and this window will popup...
If Google Drive stops working or the icon isn't in your system tray, go to your Start menu (1) , Type "Google" (2) and click/double click on Google Drive to restart it (3)
2) Uploading Files Directly - Pulling Data
At drive.google.com, if you click New, you will see a File Upload (1) and a Folder Upload (2) option. As an alternative to Google Sync, which is "pushing" files and folders up to the cloud, you could use their upload function to "pull" files and folders up to the cloud.
If you choose this as opposed to just putting files into your google drive in your file manager, you need to have a good reason why you aren't using the sync functionality.
See note below on Upload File Conversion Setting -- this is very important... and by default it may not be what you want...
If you choose this as opposed to just putting files into your google drive in your file manager, you need to have a good reason why you aren't using the sync functionality.
See note below on Upload File Conversion Setting -- this is very important... and by default it may not be what you want...
3) Google Drive "Settings"
To get to "Settings"...
Gear (1)
Settings (2)
Gear (1)
Settings (2)
1) Convert Uploads -- if this is checked .docx/.xlsx files will become gDocs and gSheets on upload. This only is engaged when you select New/Upload File(folder). This has no impact if you drag files into your google Drive folder in your file manager and they synch up.
2) Offline -- I do NOT have this box checked. In theory this allows you to edit GDocs, GSheets and other Google documents when you are not connected to the internet. This, to me, is one level of complexity I am forgoing. I want to know my work is being saved in real time. Saving it to a local copy and syncing later sounds great, but that one time it doesn't work could be infuriating. When my internet is down or unavailable, I use that to do other things.
3) Quick Access -- This is a recent feature added as of 7/1/2017 or so. I turned it off. This puts big square icons at the top of drive to make it easy to access your last four files. It seems the designers are getting itching fingers. Google Drive has a great "recents" folder that allows you quick access, but someone decided that was no longer enough, so they added this "in your face" feature.
2) Offline -- I do NOT have this box checked. In theory this allows you to edit GDocs, GSheets and other Google documents when you are not connected to the internet. This, to me, is one level of complexity I am forgoing. I want to know my work is being saved in real time. Saving it to a local copy and syncing later sounds great, but that one time it doesn't work could be infuriating. When my internet is down or unavailable, I use that to do other things.
3) Quick Access -- This is a recent feature added as of 7/1/2017 or so. I turned it off. This puts big square icons at the top of drive to make it easy to access your last four files. It seems the designers are getting itching fingers. Google Drive has a great "recents" folder that allows you quick access, but someone decided that was no longer enough, so they added this "in your face" feature.
4) Syncing Delays -- Pause and Restart to force a sync
Google Drive typically syncs up to the cloud fairly well. When a new file is modified on your computer, it sends it up and then back down to others pretty quick.
If by chance you modify a file from your cloud drive with a web tool -- lets say for example you do some editing on a photo using a browser based editing tool, and you open the photo directly from Google Drive, when you save that image back to google drive, it doesn't find it's way back to your local folder right away. Google runs pushes from cloud down to your computer on a timer, but no one knows the algorithm for the timing.
For most, this is not something they will deal with -- but I ran into it the other day and got a little frustrated.
There is no "Start Sync" or "Resync" button for Google Drive. That is most likely to prevent some annoying behavior by someone trying to be annoying.
Thus, to force a sync:
If by chance you modify a file from your cloud drive with a web tool -- lets say for example you do some editing on a photo using a browser based editing tool, and you open the photo directly from Google Drive, when you save that image back to google drive, it doesn't find it's way back to your local folder right away. Google runs pushes from cloud down to your computer on a timer, but no one knows the algorithm for the timing.
For most, this is not something they will deal with -- but I ran into it the other day and got a little frustrated.
There is no "Start Sync" or "Resync" button for Google Drive. That is most likely to prevent some annoying behavior by someone trying to be annoying.
Thus, to force a sync:
- Click on the Drive icon in the system tray
- Click on the three dot menu at the top right corner of the popup window
- Click on "Pause"
- Click on the Drive icon in the system tray that has the pause sign over it
- Click on the three dot menu at the top right corner of the popup window
- Click on "Resume" (in the same spot pause was...)