Google Drive Instructions

Why?

Anything you upload can be downloaded to another computer. (This is a great way to print from your laptop to a campus printer.)

The college cleans all the files from every one of its own computers every week, so you cannot save things to the HD of a classroom computer.

These files will stay put even if your computer gets lost or damaged.

By the way

The college pays Google for infinite storage space, so you can save a lot of papers.

If you have ever had a Google account for any reason, you also have this kind of storage space under that user name too. (Though you won't have as much space as you have on the AU Google page.)

If you are using Google Docs, your files are automatically stored to Google Drive.

If you need to print a paper, you can upload it to Google Drive, then open it on a computer in a campus computer lab and print it.

How?

Sign into your campus email account.

In the upper right of the screen, you will see a little 9-dot tic-tac-toe pattern (sometimes called a "waffle"). Click that.

Scroll down and choose Drive. (It has a triangle icon.)

I strongly suggest that you set up a file folder for each course you are taking and name them things like "English 100." You want the paper-finding process to be as quick and painless as possible. Here's how:

After you are in Google Drive, click the + New box in the upper left.
Choose Folder.
A white box will open and the name Untitled Folder will be highlighted.
Type a name for the new folder and click the blue word Create.

You can make as many of these as you like, and you can make folders within other folders—just get into the "parent" folder when you are creating the "daughter."

Double-click the folder where you want to load the file.

Click the + New box in the upper left.

Choose File upload.

A new window will open, showing you the files on your computer. Navigate to the file you want to move and click it.

Click the Upload box in the lower right corner, and the uploading process should begin.

Depending on the connection speed and the size of your file, it may take a few minutes for this process to finish.
The original file is unchanged on your computer. Google has made a copy in Google Drive.

Downloading a file

Open Google Drive and find your file.

Right-click the name and choose "Download" from the menu.

(Your computer may ask permission to download. It's trying to protect you from harmful files. Yes, it's OK to download things from Google Drive.)

The file should land in your "Downloads" folder.

The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the page author.

The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by Ashland University.

Revised 11/20/21 • Page author: Curtis Allen • e-mail: callen@ashland.edu.

Uploading a File to Google Drive

Why?

By the way

How?

Downloading a file