The best app for creating cloud archives is, of course, Google Drive, a free service from Google that allows you to save all types of files, photos, documents and whatever you want online.
Google Drive is the best alternative to OneDrive and Dropbox, it allows you to upload any file on the internet, videos, photos, documents, PDFs and more online, so as to keep them online in order to open or edit them from another PC or mobile phone .
Downloading Google Drive, therefore, allows users to create, share and collaborate with other users and keep all your things.
The best feature of Google Drive is that it includes Google Docs which includes alternative web Office applications to Word, Excel and Powerpoint.
The online space available for free is 15 GB, much higher than OneDrive and Dropbox, even if it is a space that is also shared with Gmail.
To make a summary, by accessing the Google Drive site from the internet browser, you can do the following activities:
- Create new text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, forms and drawings.
- Create and collaborate on Word, Excel or Powerpoint documents, even in real time, with colleagues or collaborators.
- Upload new files to the online space, also to share them privately or publicly.
- Store everything safely and be able to access it from anywhere (especially while on the move), from any PC or terminal that can surf the Internet.
- Search for and within the files using the search box and using the various filters.
- OCR functionality to convert scanned text into editable document.
The free 15 GB is available to all users who access Google Drive through a Google or Gmail account.
There are no limits on the single file so you can also upload a single single 4 GB file all at once.
You can increase this online space by paying $ 2.50 a month for 25 GB, $ 5 a month for 100 GB and you can even have a TB (1 Terabyte = 1000 GB) for $ 50 a month (see Google Storage prices section) )
When upgrading to a paid account, the space available on Gmail will automatically be expanded to 25 GB.
Google Drive can be downloaded as an Android application and as an iPhone / iPad app.
IPhone and Android applications also include tools to create, edit and write Office documents, including Word docx files, Excel xlsx files and Powerpoint pptx files.
You can also download the Backup and Sync program for Google Drive on PC and Mac, so you can synchronize some folders on your computer so that all the files included in them are synchronized on Google Drive.
After installing the program, you only need to configure access with the Google account and, in the advanced options, change if you prefer the location of the Google Drive folder, where you can choose whether or not to activate synchronization and whether to start Google Drive when you turn on your computer.
Those who use Google Chrome as a browser can also use Google Drive with various applications available in the Chrome Web Store.
In another article, we saw the best Chrome apps and extensions for Google Drive .
Synchronization means that every file that is copied or moved to the Windows Google Drive folder is also uploaded to the Internet in Google Drive (Docs) and becomes available online from any other PC.
Conversely, if a file is modified from another computer, synchronization replicates the changes in the Google Drive folder of the other PCs where the application is installed and activated.
At the end of the configuration, the first synchronization is started which, if Google Docs had never been used before, ends immediately because there are no files yet.
In Windows 7 and Windows 10 you can click on the Google Drive folder and create a new collection to always have it available in Windows Explorer (or in your favorites)
If you want to upload a folder or file to Google Drive without moving it and without creating a copy, you can create symbolic links.
At the bottom right, near the clock, in the notification area, you can right-click on the Google Drive icon to see the available space, to access the folder, to change preferences and to open Google Drive on the internet, via web browser.
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