Below are common questions about managing Google Drive for an organization or team.
Looking instead for a Drive feature overview?
Overview
Is Google Drive different than Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides?Yes. Drive is a place to store and access all your files, while Docs, Sheets, and Slides are types of web-based documents, as are Forms and Drawings. The suite of Google's web-based editors is referred to as Google Docs editors.
Similarly, Google My Maps are also web-based documents that you can create or share in Drive. Like Docs editors, My Maps can be used with or without Drive.
With Drive, your data is always backed up or stored in the cloud, so no matter what happens to your devices, your files are safe. You get the same business-grade data protection and security advantages that you get with G Suite, as described in G Suite security and privacy.
Accessing Drive files
Are Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, and My Maps stored on my computer?No. Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, and My Maps in My Drive are found on your computer as files that are essentially just pointers to web documents. These small "pointer files" have Google extensions (such as .gdoc, .gsheet, and .gslides), and do not count toward your storage quota. If you open these files on your computer, they open in your browser where you can edit them online as usual.
For cloud-based Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms, you can enable offline access to Docs editors. My Maps aren't available offline.
With Backup and Sync, local files are always available offline. For example, PDFs, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and other files in your Google Drive folder that weren't created with Docs editors are available offline.
With Drive File Stream, you can make selected Drive files available for offline use.
If you need to blacklist the Drive File Stream cache from virus or backup software, exclude this directory:
- Windows:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\DriveFS - Mac:
~/Library/Application Support/Google/DriveFS
You can optionally customize the cache location.
With Backup and Sync, local files (those not created with Docs editors or My Maps) still exist on your computer, as usual. Future changes to the local files will no longer sync as your computer won't be able to authenticate with Drive. Because Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms are stored in the cloud, you need your user name and password to access them.
With Drive File Stream, you need a valid Google Account to access all Drive files.
No. If you turn off the Drive service, this disables Docs editors as well as all Drive components (Drive on the web, Drive mobile apps, and Drive sync applications).
Turning on Drive also turns on Docs editors. If you have the Drive Enterprise edition, you can turn off the ability to create new Docs, Sheets, and Slides.
Syncing files
This depends on whether you use Drive File Stream or Backup and Sync. To compare these options, see Choose a sync solution.
If you use Drive File Stream, your Drive files are moved to the cloud, freeing up disk space and eliminating the network bandwidth needed to keep all your files synced from your computer to the cloud. You can stream Drive files on demand, or make them available for offline access.
If you use Backup and Sync, your local files will remain in your Drive folder on your computer, and a synced copy is also stored online. You can also configure Backup and Sync to delete local files and keep them safe in the cloud.
With Drive File Stream, files are stored in the cloud and don’t need to sync with online versions, saving network bandwidth. Files that are cached for offline access will sync back to the cloud when you’re online.
Backup and Sync doesn't throttle bandwidth by default, but you can choose to limit your bandwidth settings. You can also pause syncing at any time if Drive is consuming too much of your Internet connection.
See Back up & sync files with Google Drive to learn how to limit bandwidth.
Yes. As the administrator, you can turn on or off Drive File Stream, Backup and Sync, both, or neither. See Turn on sync for your organization to learn more.
Yes, if both applications are allowed in your organization. Learn what happens if you allow both applications.
Backup and Sync supports APFS, HFS+, and FAT (on OS X), and ReFS, NTFS, and FAT (on Windows). There is currently no support for network volumes (e.g. SMB or NFS).
Why can't I upload Google Docs and Sheets files directly to shared drives or sync with other backup clients?
Furthermore, if you try to drag a .gdoc or .gsheet file from your desktop into a shared drive in your browser, you will see the error message "File unreadable". Instead, to add a file to a shared drive, use a web browser and follow these instructions.
Storage
Drive storage is shared between Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos. The amount of free storage for each user depends on the type of your account:
|
30 GB |
|
Unlimited storage (1 TB if 4 or fewer users) |
|
15 GB |
|
No free storage quotas |
If needed, you can purchase additional storage.
Content created with Docs editors or My Maps doesn't count toward storage quotas. To learn more, see What uses my storage space?.
Individual users can only upload 750 GB each day between My Drive and all shared drives. Users who reach the 750-GB limit or upload a file larger than 750 GB cannot upload additional files that day. Uploads that are in progress will complete. The maximum individual file size that you can upload or synchronize is 5 TB.
Drive storage is for users and Cloud Storage is for developers.
Multiple revisions of a file are available online, but only the latest version is available on your computer. The online revisions are not counted toward your storage quota unless you’ve explicitly decided to keep older revisions.
No. Only one version counts against your storage quota.
No. Files that have been shared with you in Drive never count toward your storage limit, even if you move them to My Drive.
See what uses your storage space.
With Drive File Stream, this is no problem. Your files are stored exclusively online unless you make them available for offline access.
With Backup and Sync, if you don't have enough storage on your computer you can choose to sync only a subset of folders in Drive. See Back up & sync files with Google Drive to learn more.
The user can still access any files already in Drive, but they'll receive a warning and won't be able to add additional files until they're under quota or have their quota increased.
Next steps: Set up Drive for your team
