Getting Started with Google My Drive

Google Drive is Lafayette’s preferred location for online storage of files, documents, and other content. It is made up of two kinds of drives:

  • My Drive: used for storing of personal documents and files
  • Shared drives: used for storing documents and files to be shared among colleagues or teams and that should not be owned by any one individual

To learn more about the differences between the two, see Google Shared Drives and My Drive Differences.

Working in My Drive

New files and folders can be added to My Drive by clicking the [+ New] button in Google Drive. This allows you to create new folders, Google file formats, and to upload files and folders. My Drive can be accessed via the web interface as well as from your desktop using Drive for Desktop. To learn about setting up and using Drive for Desktop, see Getting Started with Drive for Desktop.

Sharing Files and Folders

To share files or folders in My Drive:

  1. Right-click on the file(s) or folder(s).
  2. Click Share.
  3. Enter the names, email addresses, or Google Group name you would like to share the content with.
  4. My Drive’s default behavior is to notify those the content has been shared with via email. If you don’t want to notify them, uncheck Notify people.
  5. You can also get a shareable link by right-clicking on the file and choosing Get Link (see My Drive Sharing and Permissions for more information).

Note: If you share with a non-Gmail email address, the person will only be able to view the file.

Editing Access of Previously Shared Content

To see who has shared access to your My Drive content, right-click on the file and choose Share.

Find Files Shared with You

In Shared with me in the left side menu in Google Drive, you can see the following:

  • Files and folders shared with you
  • Files shared with a link that you have opened

To add the files to My Drive:

  1. From Shared with me, click on the files or folders you want to add to My Drive.
  2. Right click the files or folders and select Add shortcut to Drive. A shortcut is a link out to the original file or folder.
  3. Choose the folder in which you would like to add the shortcut.
  4. Click Add shortcut.
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Note: Content shared with you is not visible in Drive File Stream unless you add it as a shortcut first.

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