What if my job uses Google Drive?
Choose between streaming and mirroring your drive, and find out why a Google Doc in your folder opens in the browser.
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If your job uses Google Workspace, the Drive for desktop app puts your Drive on your computer. The idea is the same as with OneDrive: a folder that is also the cloud. What changes are the names and a couple of details.
Drive lets you choose between two modes. Google's help calls them Stream files and Mirror files:
| Stream | Mirror | |
|---|---|---|
| Where are your files? | Mostly in the cloud | In the cloud and, in full, on your computer |
| How do you see them? | In a virtual drive; on Windows it has a letter, like G: | In a folder on your computer |
| Without internet? | Only the ones you opened | All of them, always |
| Space on your disk? | Little | Everything your Drive takes up |
Streaming is like the online-only files of OneDrive. Mirroring is like marking everything as always available.
Two more details:
- Your team's shared drives can only be streamed, whatever you choose for your own drive.
- What you change, delete or move in one place happens in the other too. It is the same mirror as on the page about deleting.
How to see or change the mode
Google's steps are the same on Windows and on Mac. The Drive for desktop menu is at the bottom right on Windows and at the top right on a Mac.
- Open Drive for desktop.
- Click Settings and then Preferences.
- On the left, click Folders from Drive.
- Under "My Drive syncing options," choose Stream files or Mirror files.
Before switching modes, Google asks that your files finish syncing, so you do not lose anything. If after going from mirroring to streaming you are left with the mirrored folder, do not delete it until everything is in the cloud.
A quick way to know which mode you are in: on Windows, if your Drive shows up as a drive with a letter, like G:, you are streaming; if it shows up as a folder, you are mirroring. And before a trip, if you stream, do not count on having opened the files: in your drive, right-click what you are going to need and choose Offline Access and then Available offline.
Check yourself: You will spend three days in an area with no internet and you need to be able to open any file in your Google Drive. Which mode do you choose before leaving?
A Google Doc is not a .docx
In your Drive folder, next to your Word or Excel files, you may see Google Docs documents, Google Sheets spreadsheets or Slides presentations. They look like files, but they open in the browser, in Google Docs. They are not a Word file saved on your disk: they are an entry that takes you to the document in the cloud.
Try it
If your job uses Drive, open your folder on the computer and look for a Google Docs file next to a Word one. Open them and compare which program opens each one. To send a Google Doc, share it from Drive: Google documents how to share files with other people and choose whether they can view, edit or comment on them. The link-or-copy page in module 3 helps you decide what works best. If the person does not use Google, ask your Maestro what you should send them.