Introduction to Google Drive for Beginners

Welcome to Google Drive for Beginners.

Google Drive is a safe, secure online location where you can store digital files.

A digital file is a digital document, picture, audio or video stream, or any other collection of data.

In this lesson, you will learn how Google Drive stores your digital files securely online.

You’ll also learn how to keep your Drive organized by using files and folders.

First, here’s more information on what Google Drive is, and how it works.

Imagine you had an important paper document that you wanted to keep safe, like a letter.

You might place your letter inside a folder for safekeeping.

Then, you’d put the folder into a filing cabinet, with all your other important documents.

When people use computers, they create paperless digital files.

For years, people would save those digital files onto computer hard drives or storage devices.

Now, Google Drive gives you the option to keep that digital letter safe and secure, without using any physical storage at all.

You can store any digital file, whether it’s a letter or spreadsheet or photo, on your Google Drive, which is a storage system based online.

Google Drive is safe and secure.

When you upload files to Google Drive, they are stored in secure data centers.

And you can access your Google Drive from any device that has access to the internet.

So if you store your letter - or any other digital file - in your Google Drive, you can access it from your smartphone, home computer, work computer, or even a friend’s device.

Files stored on Google Drive won’t get lost, even if your computer crashes.

All the projects you create with Google applications are stored automatically on your Google Drive: you don’t have to remember to save them.

Google Drive is free to users, and is included with every free Google account.

In this lesson, you will explore your Google Drive and learn how it works.

Then, you will create a folder and place one or more digital files inside your folder.

If you have completed other lessons in this series, you will have already created one or more files that are being stored in your Google Drive.

If this is your first lesson, you will make a copy of a sample document that you can use to complete the lesson.

As you go through the lesson, keep this video open in a separate tab so you can easily go back and forth between this video and your Gmail.

If you’re not already signed in to your Google account, open a new tab and sign in now.

If you need help signing into Google, creating a new account, or opening a new tab, pause this video and watch the Welcome to Google Apps for Beginners video.

Now it’s your turn: Open a new tab and sign in to your Google Account.

Or, watch “Welcome to Google Apps for Beginners” to learn how to sign in.

Then, click Next to watch the next video.