Set Up and Use Google Drive on Your Mac

Setting up Google Drive on your Mac gives you free cloud-based storage you can access from other your other Macs, PCs, iOS, and Android devices.

With Google Drive, you can store and share data among your various devices and allow friends and coworkers to access information you designate for sharing.

After you install Google Drive on your Mac, it appears to be just another folder. You can copy data to it, organize it with subfolders, and delete items from it. Any item you place in the Google Drive folder is copied to Google's cloud storage system, which you can access from any supported device.

Google Drive is well integrated with other Google services, including Google Docs, the cloud-based suite of tools that includes Google Docs, a word processor, Google Sheets, an online spreadsheet, and Google Slides, a cloud-based presentation app.

Additionally, it provides an optional backup and sync option for your computer's files, photos, and other data you specify.

You get 15 GB of free storage space with Google Drive, but the storage is shared by Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos. If that amount isn't sufficient, you can purchase more space from Google One, starting at 100GB for $1.99 per month up to 30 TB for $299.99 per month.

If you haven't installed Google Drive in the past:

The first time you start Google Drive, you have to go through a few steps to set it up. After that, accessing Google Drive is simple.

The installer finishes by adding a menu bar item and creating the Google Drive folder under your home directory.

The heart of working with Google Drive is the Google Drive folder, where you can store items you want to save to the Google cloud, as well as share with others you designate. While the Google Drive folder is where you'll spend a great deal of your time. Use the Menu bar item to exercise control over your Google Drive.

The menu bar item gives you quick access to the Google Drive folder located on your Mac. It also includes a link to open Google Drive in your browser. It displays recent documents you added or updated and tells you if the syncing to the cloud is complete.

Perhaps more important than the status info and drive links in the Google Drive menu bar item is the access to additional settings.

• My Mac: Allows you to specify which folders within the Google Drive folder are automatically synced to the cloud. The default is to have everything in the folder automatically synced, but if you prefer, you can specify only certain folders to be synced.
• Google Drive: Lets you disconnect the Google Drive folder for your Google account. Once disconnected, the files within your Mac's Google Drive folder remain on your Mac but are no longer synced with the online data in Google's cloud. You can reconnect by signing back into your Google account.
• Settings: Allows you to configure network settings if needed and control bandwidth, which is handy if you're using a slow connection or one that has data rate caps. Finally, you can configure Google Drive to automatically launch when you log in to your Mac, show file sync status, and display confirmation messages when removing shared items from Google Drive. The Settings tab is also where you can upgrade your storage to another plan.

That's all there is to it.

Your Mac now has additional storage available in Google’s cloud to use as you wish. However, one of the best uses of any cloud-based storage system is to link the storage to multiple devices for easy access to synced files with all of your devices: Macs, iPads, iPhones, Windows, and Android platforms. So, be sure to install Google Drive on any device you own or have control over.