- [Scott] You already
know the many benefits of using Google Drive online. However, if you want to save time and get more flexibility out of all of your files and folders, you should consider installing
Google Drive for desktop. So in today's video, I'm gonna
share with you everything you need to know in how to
get the most out of this app. Everything from installing
and setting up your settings to why you should consider
using the desktop app in the first place. Hello everyone, Scott
Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more
done and enjoy less stress. And let's start off with the
two key benefits of downloading and using the desktop application. Number one, you're
probably used to logging in and opening up your browser
to access all of your files. Here you can see I've got a
couple of test folders up here and then a variety of
different files down below. But sometimes I get tired of always having to go to my browser, keeping a tab open, or just opening up a new
tab to find all of my files. When I'm working here on my computer, wouldn't it be easier
if I could just open up my File Folder system, my Explorer system, or Find File and go
directly to those files? Yes, absolutely. The number two reason
I would encourage you to use the desktop application
is if you don't always want to be simply using your
Google Drive applications, such as Docs or Sheets or Slides. Maybe you prefer to use some
Microsoft Office applications and you wanna keep editing in that format. Here's an example right here. You can see by the icon
that this is actually a Word document, which I've uploaded. Now, if I double click on this, it's gonna open it up in Google Docs that really shouldn't be a surprise because we're here within Google Drive. But what if I don't like
working with Google Docs and the menu options here up above? What if I'd like to
continue to work in Word? Well, no problem, you can
do that with Google Desktop. So where do you go to get the Google Drive for desktop application? Well, I'd actually recommend
that you do a search rather than just give you a URL. Why? Because the URL is not very memorable. Here you can see the second one down is download Google Drive
and if I click on this link, you'll see a screen such as this. Now, all you really need
to pay attention to here is the blue button to
Download Drive for desktop, whether you are a PC or a Mac user, and also keep in mind,
you can download Drive directly to your iOS or Android device. Now, once things are installed,
let's open up our desktop and see how it looks and feels there. Well, we don't have to go very far. All I need to do is open up my File Folder or in this case, my Explorer Window. And you can see at the very bottom here, I've got a listing of some
of my most common locations on my PC, including my
Desktop, Documents, Downloads, some other areas here. Here's my Window C file and then down below, I've got
my G Drive, Google Drive G. And as you can see here, I've got two different sections. I've got My Drive and then
I've got Other Computers. Now I'm gonna come back to
this Other Computers here in just a moment. But if I click on My Drive,
you can see I have now access to all of the same files and those two test folders
that you saw on Google Drive. If I open things back up again, here are those two test folders, here's the files down below. I can now access everything
here on my desktop computer, so I no longer have to launch
a browser to find those files. If I want to look at an image here, I can just double click on this and it's gonna open up this
image right here on my computer. Now I can edit it here
with any other application that I have installed on my computer. And if we go back to this Word document, remember this About Page
Revisions that we saw on our online version of Google Drive? Well, of course it's a
Microsoft Word document. If I double click it here, it's gonna open it up within Word. So maybe I'm more comfortable
using Word here I can do so, but everything here is going to be saved, continue to be saved to Google Drive. So one of the nice advantages of using the Google Drive for desktop application. Now, of course, you probably
have a mix of different types of file types here within
your Google Drive account. And although I have a Word document here, many of my files here are
either a Google Sheets or a Google Docs, or maybe a Google Form. So for example, if I
open up this Google Form, it can't launch it within the desktop because Google Forms does not
have a desktop application. However, it's going to take
me directly to this file by opening up my browser. So it was a simple double
click to open the file up just like I would anywhere else and it's taken me directly to this file. So I didn't first have to
go to my online Drive tab and then search for it, I
can go directly to that file. I can make my changes and know
that I can always access it right here from my desktop. The other nice thing, because you've got your own Drive here, your own Google Drive, you can drag in any other
file into this account. So if I want to use this
as a backup service, maybe if I want to share a particular file or a folder with others through
my Google Drive account, all I need to do is
drag and drop that file into my file here. So it can be used as a backup tool, could be used in a variety
of different ways as well. Now that you know, a little bit more about how to use Google
Drive on your computer, let's make sure that you're comfortable with the different settings and some of the things
that you may want to switch when first installing the desktop app. So in order to access your settings, all you need to do is
come down to the task bar and find your Google
Drive for desktop icon. I'm gonna click on this and
you can see that we are given some of the most recent activity here, including the file that I just opened here letting me know that
everything is now up-to-date. If there are any particular notifications, you can find them here as well. But where are you gonna
want to pay attention to is this little gear icon. So you can set your own
personal preferences, and that's gonna open up
this little dialogue here. Now we're actually gonna
start on this first tab, you can see that there's two. One is Google Drive and the
top one is going to be listed either as My Laptop or Your Computer or whatever you've named the system in which you've downloaded
the application. So I'm gonna start here because this is, I think
one of the key benefits of using this tool. Here we can safely back up our files or just make them accessible
on either Google Drive or Google Drive and Google Photos. So in this case, I'm displayed
with this option here because I have yet to add a folder, but maybe I have an existing
folder here within my laptop and I'd like to access it on Google Drive. So in order to choose a
folder on your computer, select the Add Folder button and this is gonna open
up your Explorer bar or something similar, so
you can find your files. So here's the particular
folder in which I'd like to add to my Google Drive account. I'm just going to select
it here, say Select Folder and now I have the choice to
either Sync with Google Drive, or I can also back up to Google Photos. Now, in this case, I'm just gonna keep this first option here and I'm going to select Done. So now under My Laptop, I can see a full listing
which in this case, of course is just the one folder, which is now being backed up
to my Google Drive account. Of course you can add as
many folders as you like, as long as you have room within
your Google Drive account and you can see them listed here. Now, the second option that
we have here is Google Drive, and that is folders from Google Drive. Now I actually like this,
it's giving me a warning here, I'm gonna go back 'cause I
forgot to hit the Save button. So I'm gonna hit Save to
make sure that this file is going to be uploaded and backed up to my Google Drive account. Now I'm gonna go to my Google Drive here and now I can access my
files and open in Explorer. This is simply gonna open
the exact same screen that we saw earlier but what
we do wanna pay attention to are the two choices down below, Stream Files or Mirror Files. Now by default Stream
Files will be selected when you first download and install the Drive desktop application. And what this means is that
all of your Drive files are stored in the cloud only. We do have the choice
to set specific files or specific folders to be
made available offline, but by default, you are simply streaming or accessing those folders in the cloud. The second option that we have down below is to mirror those files. And what that means is that
all of your Drive files will be stored in the
cloud and on your computer. So by default, that means
that you'll have access to everything offline even if
you're away from the internet, those files will actually
reside on your computer. One of the big differences
beyond just online and offline of course is hard drive space. If you choose Mirror files, you'll be storing a lot more information on your local computer. So you can take a look
at the pros and cons and see what is best for you. Now, before we leave this dialogue we wanna come up here and
hit this icon as well, 'cause there's a couple
of additional things that I want you to pay attention to. There's a few other tweaks that you can scan down this screen. Some of them are maybe
a little more detailed or a little more specific that
you won't need to get into or make changes to. But I do want to pay your attention to this very first option here. So we can see that there's
a check box that says, Real-time Presence in Microsoft Office. And again, this is very
helpful to any of you who are using a lot of
Microsoft Office products, such as Excel or PowerPoint or Word. And if you're sharing those
documents with others, if we leave this checked,
we can see if someone else is editing a shared Microsoft Office file. So just like you're used to seeing this within your own Drive files
when you're working online, now we can see something similar. So I would usually recommend
that you keep this checked, so that you can see when others
are working on that file. Lastly, you can choose a different
Drive letter if you wish. Now, it's not surprising that Google has chosen Drive G for Google
but if you have a preference, you can choose from
one of the other drives that is available to you as well. So if you want the convenience and flexibility of accessing
all of your Drive files from your desktop computer or to back up and upload your desktop files
directly to Google Drive, be sure to check out the Google Drive for desktop application. Remember, being productive
does not need to be difficult, in fact, it's very simple.
