Using Google Drive – New Features, Benefits and Advantages of Google Cloud Storage (2024)

With a Google Account, you get 15 GB of storage for free. Storage is used by Google Drive, Gmail and Google Photos, so you can store files, save your email attachments, and back up photos and videos. For more than 15 GB, you can upgrade to Google One.

Photos, videos, presentations, PDFs – even Microsoft Office files. No matter what type of file it is, everything can be stored safely in Drive.

Files in Drive are private, until you decide to share them. You can quickly invite others to view, comment and edit any file or folder that you choose. It's online collaboration made easy.

Your file security is crucial. That's why every file in Drive stays safe no matter what happens to your smartphone, tablet or computer. Drive is encrypted using SSL, the same security protocol used on Gmail and other Google services.

Hover over an attachment in Gmail and look for the Drive logo. Here, you can save any attachment to your Drive to organise and share them in a single, safe place.

Drive can recognise objects in your images and text in scanned documents. So you can search for a word such as "Eiffel Tower" and view text documents containing that word, as well as images of the actual Eiffel Tower.

Store your photos in Drive and see them come to life with Google Photos. Get that expertly edited look without the effort, plus animations, movies and more.

Google Drive is built into Chromebooks, so your files and photos are automatically backed up. You'll receive 100 GB of free storage for two years with most new Chromebooks.

Create and collaborate with others. Share documents and files, work on spreadsheets and make a presentation on the move with our Docs, Sheets and Slidesapps.

Google Forms lets you run a survey or quickly create a team rota with a simple online form. Then have a look at the results, neatly organised in a spreadsheet.

Lay out diagrams, create flow charts and then easily add them to other documents or embed them on a website with Google Drawings.

Edit your profile photo, do some landscaping, create a mind map and more. Over 100 Drive apps can help you do more with your stuff. Try them by installing one from the Drive collection in the Chrome WebStore.

Scan all your paper documents with Drive for Android. Just snap a photo of documents such as receipts, letters and statements – and Drive will store them instantly as PDFs.

Make files available offline so that you can view them when your phone or tablet loses service, such as on a plane or in a building with a bad connection.

You can look back as far as 30 days on most file types, making it easy to see who has made changes and go back to previous versions. That's file versioning made easy.