Ever think of such integration which will let you do multiple works when you are just using just one. We use so many different types of softwares and applications in our smartphones and PCs. We use them for various purposes but a common reason behind using them is making tasks easier and faster.
However, you must have heard the name of google drive as it is one of the most common and used google services. Google offers different services along with the search engine. If you are an android user, then you may be familiar with different google apps that come as built-in features with your device like google file manager, calendar, google drive, google photos, etc.
More or less, most of us have experience using google drive. Maybe we use it to store some of our potential files and folders or images. But we don’t know the versatile functionalities that come with google drive. Even many of us don’t hear about them.
Google Drive includes a lot of features which make it one of the most multipurpose tools with the highest flexibility that you can get ever. You can use it to stay organized with lots of files and folders which are highly important to you.
Well, there are a bunch of pros and cons that come with google drive. In this article, we are discussing them and going to unveil some hidden features of google drive that you may not know before. So, let’s drive into the discussion here below,
Contents
What is google drive?
Google Drive is a multi-functional tool that provides huge features and options. But before them, google drive is widely famous as a cloud storage service of google worldwide. We are somehow connected with any of the cloud storage services because it is needed to access important files and programs online. As a popular storage service, google gives additional free space (15 GB) for every user when they sign up in a google account for the first. But users can increase the space by buying some with real money and google drive offers up to 3 TB storage for common people.
Besides, google drive is considering as the second choice after Microsoft word because of its Microsoft compatible word processing functions and official kinds of stuff like,
- Google Docs – google word processor which is quite similar to Microsoft word
- Google sheets – you can say it as a google version of Excel
- Slides – google version of Microsoft PowerPoint
You can use google drive to do a research paper, compile any written documents, data research like Microsoft excel, and also make presentations like PowerPoint presentations. But that is not all, we have many more google drive objectives to make you understand how helpful google drive is.
What are the pros of google drive?
There are so many pros of google drive. It is a tool which is compatible to cover your needs in both personal and official requirements. Google drives will let your work with higher flexibility and also will allow you to access your files and folders from anywhere and any device in the world. So, let’s know about google drive in deep, here are the pros of it,
- Ease of use interface
- Access from anywhere
- Free cloud storage space
- Google docs
- Excellent collaborative platform
- Backup and Sync
- Offline access
- Sharing
- Scan documents
- Save Gmail attachments
- Preview and editing of text documents
- Add ons
Ease of use interface
User interface is the top dealing issue at present for software, applications, and integrations we use. Every system should come with a good user interface to interact with users and keep them connecting and spending more time with them.
Similarly, google drive has a great interface that is almost easy to use. The functions that it includes are easy to understand that users who use the first time can readily capture which option deals with what. When you first open the drive, you will find a menu on the left side that holds the main functions of the drive like,
- New – to create/upload anything new in drive
- Shared with me – shows all the files that have been shared with you
- Recent – to see what you have done in recent
- Starred – something like bookmark shows files which you have star marked
- Trash – holds the deleted file for a limited period and after that, they will be automatically removed
Its internal programs like docs, sheets, and slides also come with a light interface that seems easy going even for those who don’t have used it before.
Access from anywhere
When you have a google account with your personal gdrive cloud storage, you will need to get access to it no matter wherever you are. Since it gives wide opportunities to manage your content, important files, folders, images, presentations, and so on. You need to access your files instantly and make what you want with them.
Google drive allows users to access their personal storage from anywhere. That means, you can store anything and can access to see or change from another. But here are some conditions, first of all, you must need an internet connection, then the device you are using to access that must have logged in with your Google account.
If you have both, then you can easily access your google drive storage.
Free cloud storage space
Google Drive offers a limited 15 GB cloud storage space to all its new users. If you have a google account then you have already got it but if you don’t, then you can easily create one to enjoy this free online storage.
One can use the storage to store any of his images, videos, research papers, presentation, and so on. Google drive supports almost all types of file extensions. So, you don’t need to worry whether your file would support it or not.
Once you store files in your Drive storage, you can access them anywhere in the world and make changes if you want. Think, you have done half of your work in an office and put the file in google drive. Then you can do the rest of your work staying in your home with just an internet connection.
Google Docs
If you think about any competitor of Microsoft Word, then it will surely be google docs. Google docs are one of the most common functions of google drive. It offers users to create new document files to create content, rich text files, research, and many more.
It is considered a competitor of Microsoft Word because of its similar interface. You will work like you are working in MS word. If you are accustomed to using Microsoft Word, then you will also be using Google docs.
You can adjust the headline separately from heading 1 to heading 6, various fonts, alignment, line spacing, highlight, bullet point, and so on.
Excellent collaborative platform
Do you know google drive can also be used as a collaborative platform? Google Drive allows working collaboratively in a specific project where team members can include or exclude and bring massive changes into the files if they have owner access.
It is an important option in business, official and for students, because they need to do research in a group or team where the team members contribute knowledge. If you find this feature helpful, then you can use google drive in such regard.
Backup and Sync
Backup and sync are the function which will save you from losing important files, images, or anything which you forget to safely store. Once upon a time when there was no google backup and sync app, people used to back up their images, files and folders manually in google drive and google photos.
But when it entered the scene, it became trouble free to backup any files and images. Because the backup and sync app takes the job by doing it automatically. Once you backup anything with google drive and log in to a new device further, you can see all the files which you backed up in the new device.
Offline access
One of the interesting features of google drive which will let you access any of your google drives and make changes while you are offline. Google drives offline access is so much helpful for those who don’t have a better internet connection in their locality.
Since you don’t need an internet connection to use Microsoft Word, Google keeps this function to give a similar output like that. To use files offline, you have made the settings at first. To make the file offline available, you have to click the specific file and choose ‘available offline. Note that without making the file available offline, you won’t be able to use that offline.
Sharing
Google includes easy sharing systems in the drive to provide a flexible experience to the users. While storing different files in google drive, users may need to share the files on other platforms. Therefore, Google makes it super easy by providing separate links for separate files. You can share the file with the link you have copied on your clipboard.
Scan document
Have you got surprised to see the heading? If yes, then you should know that google drive is highly able to scan documents. Although the function is available in the google drive android app through which you can easily scan any paper documents that will automatically store in your drive.
If you don’t know where the scan function is, you can simply open the drive, click on new and you will see the scan function. Not to worry, it is like capturing images with your mobile phone camera.
Save Gmail attachments
Thinking about the users who receive massive files and folders through Gmail, google drive includes the feature which allows users to save Gmail attachments directly into google drive with just a click. When you will receive Gmail with attachments, you will offer two options save to drive and download. If you choose to click on save to drive, the file will automatically save into google drive.
Add ons
Google Drive also offers to add ons to accelerate your working process with these third-party integrations. In google drive, you can see an option called ‘get add on’, if you click on that, you will see a library of add ons where you can find so many helpful add ons. You can easily install and take advantage of those add ons.
Revision
Google Drive has made it advanced to track changes in a google docs file while you aren’t there. In collaborative work, there include a couple of members to complete a separate task. But it is not possible to be active for all the members in an exact time.
Therefore, google drive will let you track what has been done in the document when you aren’t there by highlighting changes with different color marks. So, you don’t have to worry about such situations when you can see all the changes at once.
Setting access level
Another mentionable feature of google drive that gives drive owners an authoritative power to control the access level of a particular folder. When you are sharing your drive documents with others, you are doing this to help them with a good heart. But what if they pay you something unwanted in return.
If you set them as owners, they can do changes and delete folders as you. Therefore, you have to be careful while sharing drive access to others. If you have a trust issue, then don’t give owners’ badges to them. Although, you can set access level in different format like
- Who can edit
- Who can comment
- Can view
- Is owner
PDF to text convert
You can use google drive to convert any PDF file into editable text format. It is not so complicated, just upload the PDF file into your google drive and open it with google docs. The file will automatically convert into text format and you can make any changes to that.
What are the cons of google drive?
Consequently, google drive provides huge benefits through which users can ramp up multiple activities with a single integration. One can use google drive both online and offline and seemingly it is like an alternative to Microsoft word.
But in the meantime, google drive comes with some mentionable disadvantages which could make you feel disgusted about it. Despite these cons of google drive, you can say it is the most reliable cloud storage service with an easy to use interface.
For your convenience, here we are showing these disadvantages of google drive consecutively,
Could add more space for non-paid users
Definitely, they can, consequently, there are more free users than paid users. Paid users can buy additional spaces when they need them. But thinking about the huge portion of gdrive users who are students and unemployed, they can’t afford that additional space with a monthly fee. Therefore, they could have added more spaces for free users so that they can use it with more versatility.
Security issues
It is one of the big disadvantages of google drive and can impact a huge user’s experience. It is true that gdrive has many security shortcomings. For example, when you share a link of any files of your drive, it means you are making a way to access your drive for whom you are giving the link. In addition, anyone can access your drive through the link and you won’t notice them when they access or if they do any changes to the file.
Even there are chances to be hacked your information by the hackers. Hackers can easily manipulate viruses into your servers and if they do so, all your important data and resources will have vanished.
There is no doubt that Google is one of the most powerful names in the present online interface. But as they aren’t getting many users of google drive, therefore, these security issues are still getting ignored. If they add a simple password system and implement a high anti-virus or virus protection system in it, it will be great for users.
Lag in multiple uses
Gdrive can lag in collaborative usage when multiple users are sharing the platform and doing the same work along. Google Drive is often a problem if a large number of users are logged in at once. It causes suffering during editing.
Uploading and downloading
There are so many objections about the uploading and downloading system of gdrive. The server gets slow when millions of users upload at the same time. It is best for simple word document management, but if you choose a larger file to store your drive, it will take a little bit of time to completely upload. The same word also goes for the download system as well. If you want to download any uploaded file, you have to wait a little bit. Besides, uploading and downloading expenses huge data.
Internet connection is fundamental
For gdrive, an internet connection is fundamental and you must have ensured it before accessing or doing anything with your google drive storage. You can save up your files for further use, but if you change anything in that file while you are offline, that won’t be adjusted until you are going online.
That means offline changes will only be visible when you are offline, if you don’t sync changes with a proper internet connection, then you can’t see them later.
Limitation about uploading file size
Google drive has limitations over the files you upload to it. It has a recommendation about the file sizes you can upload for particular file types such as,
- Documents: Up to 1.02 million characters. If you convert a text document to google docs format, it can be up to 50 MB
- Spreadsheets: up to 2 million cells for spreadsheets that are created in or converted to google sheets
- Presentations: Up to 100 MB for presentations converted to google slides
- Google sites: Up to 200,000 characters per page and up to 1000 pages (max 10 million characters)
- Others: Up to 5 TB
All you can see, you can see a maximum of 5 TB files at once, and not only that, Google has limited to other forms of files how you should size them.
Unwanted third party apps
Google includes so many helpful add ons that you can easily install and take benefit through. But there are some third party integrations that also take part in the section which sometimes could cause adware. The authority should also take this into their account and prevent those third party authentications.
Regarding its pros and cons, google drive has undoubtedly more pros than cons. One can use its free storage to store their working documents and files and can access them from anywhere they want. Therefore, forgetting the minor issues of google drive, we should utilize the major options of google drive.