Google Drive is a storage service that lets you save various files to the cloud and then access

them from
your smartphone, tablet, or computer. You can store documents, images, videos, and even back up your
entire PC. The service makes it easy to transfer files from one device to another without having to email
them to yourself. It also lets you share documents with others and will make sure your files are safe if
your PC stops working.

Google Drive is free of charge and goes head to head with services like Dropbox and Box. Although using
it isn’t exactly rocket science, the service does have many features that might confuse a newbie. We
take a look at the most popular ones in this post, explaining what they are and how to use them.

Before we dive into all the features and show you how to use Google Drive, let’s talk about a few basic
things you have to know. The first is that you need a Google account to use the service. It’s free of
charge and can be set up in a few minutes. The account gives you access to all of Google’s services,
including Drive, Gmail, Photos, YouTube, Play Store, and so on.

You can access Drive on the web by heading to drive.google.com or via the free Android app —
download here. You can also view all your files via the Drive folder on your PC, but you need to
download the Backup and Sync software first.

Types of supported files

The end result is the same no matter which upload method you choose. The files get stored in Drive, and
you can access them from your PC, tablet, or smartphone. The service supports a ton of file types
including .jpeg, .png, .gif, mpeg4, .mov, and .avi — see full list here. There are also file size limits in
place, but they won’t cause problems for most users:

Documents: Up to 1.02 million characters. If you convert a text document to Google Docs format, it can
be up to 50 MB.

Spreadsheets: Up to two million cells for spreadsheets that are created in or converted to Google
Sheets.

Presentations: Up to 100MB for presentations converted to Google Slides.

All other files: Up to 5TB.

Offline mode options

Having your files online is great for accessing them from multiple devices, but it can also mean you
won’t be able to see or edit them without an internet connection. Fortunately, this isn’t the case with
Google Drive. The service has an offline mode, allowing you to access files while you’re not connected to
the internet. You can view and edit files including Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, with all the changes
being synchronized automatically when an internet connection is established again.