Google Drive Tips and Tricks

Google Drive Tips & TricksProductivity Hacks with Google Drive

Because Google Drive is linked to your Google account, you can attach files stored in Google Drive directly to your Gmail.

Unlike traditional attachments where you first have to upload an attachment, attaching a file through Google Drive does not require you to re-upload the file. The file size limit does not apply since a link is given for the email receiver to download.

Attach Google Drive Files on Gmail

Google Drive allows you to use keyboard shortcuts for navigation right in your web browser. Here are some of the keyboard shortcuts you can use.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Since your Google+ account is also linked to your Google Drive account, you can easily upload and share whatever pictures you have on your Google Drive onto Google+. All you have to do is select the From Google Drive option when adding a photo.

Easily Share Photos On Google+

Save Images On Websites To Google Drive

If you want to instantly save images, documents, HTML5 audio and videos to your Google Drive, you can do so by installing the Save to Google Drive Chrome extension.

With the extension, whenever you right click on a link or image, you get the option to save the image or link directly to your Google Drive.

Listen To Music Files

By default, you can only download music files from the Google Drive website. If you want to listen to those files, you can install Drive Music for your Google Chrome web browser. After installation, whenever you click on a music file, Drive Music will launch in a separate tab that has basic functions similar to a music player.

Use Revision History To Avoid Mistakes

If you’ve accidentally deleted a file on Google Drive, you can reclaim the file from the Bin within 30 days before it gets deleted for good. For individual files, you can view and choose to restore a revision you’ve made in the past.

All you have to do is open a file from the Google Drive website, and hit Ctrl + Alt + G where you can see a panel on the right of your screen showing the revisions you’ve made in the past.

Disable Automatic Deletion Of File Versions

By default, Google Drive allows you to restore 100 previous revisions of files. You can have an unlimited amount of revisions, at the sacrifice of your storage space. To disable automatic deletion, right-click on a file on the Google Drive website and select Manage revisions.

Another window will popup; select the file revisions you never want deleted. The list will be longer if you have more revisions synced to Google Drive.

Install Google Drive Apps For Google Chrome

Like the extensions we mentioned above? Well, there are a lot more apps for Google Chrome that work with Google Drive. Browse through the Google Drive apps collection to find something that may benefit you.

Download All Your Google Docs Documentsin One Click

Do you have a whole bunch of documents stored in your Google Docs account and you want an easy way to download all of them in one shot? It is a good idea to keep an offline copy of your entire Google Docs archive, this will be handy when you have no Internet connectivity e.g travelling, vacations etc.

In order to back up your Google Docs collections, go to docs.google.com, sign in to your Google account, and choose the items you want to backup. To back up all the documents, choose “All Items” in the left sidebar, select the tiny little check box next to “Title”, pull down the “more” drop down menu and choose “Download”.

Google Docs is probably the only online office program which lets you choose the output format of your documents. For example, you can convert all word documents to PDF or HTML and download the converted version, without any added effort whatsoever.

There is another simple alternative. Go to the Google Takeout page, sign in with your Google account, create a ZIP archive of your Google Docs documents and you are done.

Google Takeout will email you the download link, once your entire Google Docs archive is ready. The only catch is that unlike the regular Google Docs website, Google Takeout won’t provide any option to convert the documents to another format.

Use Google Docs To Create Simple Forms, Surveys Or Polls

Apart from being an online office suite for enterprises, Google Docs can be used as an excellent polling or questionnaire software. You can use Google Docs to create simple web based forms, surveys, polls and embed these forms on your website.

While there are a slew of web based polling programs available, I always prefer Google Docs for the following reasons:

1. Google Docs collects and stores all the form responses in an Excel spreadsheet, which makes it super easy to analyze the data. With Google Docs, you can create unlimited number of forms and store unlimited number of responses for every form, all for free.

2. Google Docs forms supports logic branching, so you can design IF ELSE questions depending on the response of the user. Further, you can analyze large sets of data and generate pie charts, bar graphs, and Venn diagrams from the user responses.

3. When users enter a response in any of your forms, Google Docs will notify you through an email message. You can hack your Google Docs form and get form data in the email message itself, so this makes sure that you won’t have to open that response sheet over and over again.

Here are a couple of tutorials which will help you get started with forms in Google Docs:

• Create survey and feedback forms using Google Docs• Saving Form Data to Google Spreadsheets with PHP an

d Google Docs API• Create a simple contact form using Google Docs

Know When Changes Are Made To Your Google Docs Forms Or Spreadsheets

Spreadsheets in Google Docs are a great way to collect and store large sets of data. If you are a regular web worker and want an easy to use tool which can store contact details of customers, email addresses of leads, I would suggest using Google Docs for two reasons.

First, Google Docs lets you store unlimited amount of data without any limitations whatsoever. Second, since Google Docs comes with collaborative features, you can allow other users to fill data into your Google Docs forms. This can range from a simple contact form to a survey poll, depending upon your requirements.

But how do you know when other shared users enter data in your Google Docs forms or spreadsheets? Pretty easy, just pull down the “Tools” menu, choose “Notification rules” and set up your desired notification settings.

You can choose to get Email notification, when any of the following actions happen:

• When changes are made to your Google Docs forms. This includes addition of new data or a new update of an old data set.

• When changes are made to a particular sheet of an Excel spreadsheet.

• When a particular cell range is updated or values are changed.

• When a user submits a form• When new collaborators are added or removed.

Use Google Docs To Translate Office Documents To Another Language

If you have clients whose native language is not the same as yours, you can use Google Docs to translate documents and create a translated copy of a document on your own Google Docs account. When your foreign counterpart shares a document written in classical Chinese, simply pull down the “Tools” menu and click on “Translate document”. Next, choose a target language and you’re done.

Revision History

This one is a real lifesaver for anyone who has to frequently edit his or her documents and needs a simple way to revert the document to an older version. Google Docs automatically creates a log of all the document revisions (regardless of how many users are collaborating on any given document). The owner of the document can quickly see an earlier copy from File > See revision history. Following is an example screenshot of the revision history of this article, written entirely in Google Docs:

To restore the document to an earlier version, hover the mouse cursor over a desired revision log and hit “Restore”. Google Docs automatically highlights the changes of an earlier revision so you will have no problems in comparing the changes.

Over To You

What Google Drive tips or tricks do you take advantage of? Help us build on our list.