Google Drive

My Drive, Shared Drives, Shared Files & Folders, Shared with Me, and Google Drive for desktop

Note: This page has general information about Google Drive. If you're looking for information specific to how AMBS uses Shared Drives, look elsewhere on this site.

Let's make this simple and quick: Google Drive is like a hard drive, but on the internet instead of on your computer or a server. That's it. If you really want to dig in, Google's information about Drive is clear and likely more up-to-date than this guide.

But Google Drive can be confusing--just look at the header on this page (the one that starts with "My Drive, Shared Drives...")!

Confusion about Google Drive often comes down to either terminology or appearance.

Terminology

My Drive vs. Shared Drives

My Drive is your own personal file storage area. The things you add to My Drive are (mostly) yours and yours alone. This is true whether you create the file in Google Docs/Sheets/Slides in your web browser or save a file to Drive File Stream from Microsoft Word/Excel/PowerPoint or some other application. You are the owner of files you create in My Drive, and if your Google Account is deleted so are all the files you own. Remember how I said that Google Drive is like a hard drive on the internet? This is where that's most apparent.

My Drive is visible when you visit Google Drive in your web browser (here's Google's cheat sheet about this) and when you browse files on your computer in Drive File Stream.


Shared Drives are where teams of people who should have the same access to the same files for the same project can store those files. Every member of a shared drive has access to everything in the shared drive. (Google has some best practices for Shared Drives.) Files stored in a Shared Drive are owned by the drive itself, not by the person who created the file. They stay in the Shared Drive regardless of whether the person who created them still has access to the Shared Drive (even if the creator's Google account is deleted "their" items in a Shared Drive remain).

Anyone at AMBS can create a Shared Drive. For purposes of business continuity, most committees and employee groups that routinely work collaboratively should use a shared drive to store that work.

Shared Drives are visible when you visit Google Drive in your web browser and when you browse files on your computer in Drive File Stream.

Shared Drives vs. Shared Files & Folders

Shared Drives are where you work on a project with a team or get to AMBS-wide shared resources.

A Shared Folder or Shared File is one that you share with people on a more informal or as needed basis. Say you're drafting a press release or a blog post and you want another set of eyes to see it. When you share that file or folder you effectively invite those with whom you share it to join you in editing or reviewing it. Shared folders and files are a little bit like like a Shared Drive (multiple people can get to the shared folder/file) and a little bit like My Drive (you retain ownership of the file).

General rules for sharing files or folders:

  1. When possible, share a folder instead of a file. This makes it easier for recipients to organize resources shared with them.

  2. Use shared folders or files if one of the following is true (otherwise consider a Shared Drive):

      • You need to share the file/folder with people who are outside of AMBS, or

    • You need to share one thing for this one particular purpose and plan to make the file or folder private once the project is complete.

See also Google's documentation on when to use shared folders/files or shared drives.

Because you share folders and files from within My Drive, the folders and files you share are visible to you when you visit Google Drive in your web browser and when you browse files on your computer in Drive File Stream. But do note the emphasis on to you in the previous sentence, and see "Shared Files & Folders vs. Shared with Me" on this page for a caveat.

Shared Files & Folders vs. Shared with Me

Shared Files & Folders are how you make a file or folder available to someone(s) else on an ad hoc basis.

"Shared with me" is where you can find files and folders that others share with you and where those others find files and folders that you share with them.

"Shared with me" is available only when you view Google Drive using your web browser (it does not appear in Drive File Stream). This is a source of confusion--if I share a file with you, I can see it in My Drive both in the web browser and in Drive File Stream on my computer. But by default you will find it only by viewing "Shared with me" in your web browser. For this reason, you should get comfortable using your web browser to find your files in Google Drive.

Here's a best practice using an analog example: when someone slides a paper or a folder under your office door, you probably don't let it just lie on the floor with all the other papers and folders folks have slid under your office door. Instead, you pick it up and do something with it so that you can find it later. Do likewise in Google Drive--when someone shares a file or folder with you, go to Google Drive in your web browser and move that file or folder from "Shared with me" to somewhere within your own My Drive file structure. Then you'll be able to find it more easily later. If you do this reliably, you won't need to perpetually ask the person who shared it with you to resend you the link. They hate that.

Google Drive for desktop (on your Mac or PC)

For AMBS purposes there are two ways to get to your files stored in Google Drive.

The first is to visit the Google Drive website in your web browser. You can, but need not, do nearly all of your work this way, including editing documents saved in Microsoft Office formats. Why would you do this? For two reasons:

  1. As you've seen, when you visit Google Drive in your web browser you have access to everything in Google Drive: My Drive, Shared Drives, and Shared with Me. In If you rely exclusively on Google Drive for desktop you do not see Shared with Me.

  2. In an environment where both Microsoft products and Google products are used to create documents, using a tool that doesn't care what kind of file you are opening can be frustration reducing. Try opening a Google Sheet with Microsoft Excel sometime and see if you have a good experience.

That said, most employees at AMBS have Google Drive for desktop installed on their computers (if this isn't true for you, you can download Google Drive for desktop from Google's website). Microsoft Office should just want to save things there by default (if this isn't true for you, contact the IT help desk), and if you want to move something from your computer to Google Drive, you can drag-and-drop into the folder that Google Drive for desktop creates on your computer. The files you place there are uploaded to My Drive or Shared Drives. Note: Google Drive for desktop used to be called Drive File Stream.

Appearance

Koan

The things that look different look the same.

Unpacking the koan

Your computer's native file explorer and web browser use different icons, different spacing, different colors, and different default organizational presentations to show you the files you have stored in Google Drive. But when you look past the surface differences you see the same files--think of your file explorer and your web browser as different windows into the same room of a house. Looking through the windows into the house you see the same sofa but from slightly different perspectives.

The silent video on this page shows some settings you can change to make what you see in your browser look a little more like what you see in your computer's file explorer.

Repacking the koan

Things that look the same can be made to look different.

In order to make what you see in the web browser look more like what you see in your file explorer, you need to disable some settings that you might find useful.

Quick Access (Settings > "Make relevant files handy when you need them" checkbox) shows you files you've used recently in My Drive or in a particular Shared Drive, no matter where they live inside that drive. This is similar to the "Recent Files" feature of Microsoft Office products or the Shortcuts feature of your computer's file explorer. (Settings > "Surface important people or files in Shared with Me" does something similar in, well, Shared with Me.) If you can learn to tune out the Quick Access panel when you don't need it, you can take advantage of it when you do.

Priority is a way to view and organize your files that is not the same as what you see in your computer's file explorer. In your web browser you see an entry for Priority where you see My Drive, Shared Drives, and Shared with Me. Suppose that in a given week you routinely edit several documents that are stored at different places in Google Drive--maybe you update your budget, your project status list, and a folder of images. In Priority you can create a "Workspace" that puts each of those locations one click away instead of requiring you to navigate through your organizational system to get to them. The files and folders remain where they are in your organizational system; Priority is like a set of shortcuts. (Google explains this better than I can.) If you like this idea you can enable Priority as your default view for Google Drive in your browser (Settings > "Make Priority my default home page").