The Anatomy of Google Drive
Create, Upload, & Organize
File, Folders, & Search
Details, Activities, & Drive Settings
Account Settings & Google App Navigation*
Create, Upload, & Organize
File, Folders, & Search
Details, Activities, & Drive Settings
“Incoming” Folder is now called “Shared with Me” and Adding Folders & Documents to “My Drive”
Tips on Finding and Sharing Files
Cannot find the file you are looking for in the “Incoming” folder?
Look in your email for a notification of the shared file
Search for the file using Google Drive search
DO NOT use the client in Windows or in OSX to move a shared file to “My Drive”
How to Transfer Ownership of a file
Go to Drive or a Docs, Sheets, or Slides home screen.
Open the sharing box:
In “My Drive”, click the name of the file or folder and click the
Share button in the top-right
In a Docs, Sheets, or Slides home screen: Open the file and click Share in the top-right corner of the file
Click Advanced in the bottom-right corner of the sharing box.
Click the drop-down menu next to the name of the person you want to own the file or folder.
Select Is owner.
Click Done.
Advance Search Terms
Option | Definition | Example |
" " Quotes | To find documents that contain that exact phrase. | "match this phrase exactly" |
OR | To find documents with at least one of the words. | tacos OR nachos |
- Minus sign | Documents that exclude a particular word. So if you want docs that mention “salsa,” but not “dancing,” use... | salsa -dancing |
owner: from: | Documents owned or shared from a specific person | owner:bob@gmail.com from:bob@gmail.com |
to: | Documents you shared with someone | to:bob@gmail.com |
is:trashed (in the new Google Drive) | Items that are trashed. | is:trashed |
type: | Search by the type of document. This covers: folder, document, spreadsheet, presentation, pdf, image, video, drawing, form, script, and table. | type:spreadsheet |
before:YYYY-MM-DD after:YYYY-MM-DD | Find items that were edited before or after a certain day. | before:2014-05-01 after:2014-05-01 |
title: | Search by the item’s title. | title:"Conference 2014" |
How to see total storage used
Hover over your storage usage in the bottom left corner.
Click Drive in the message that appears. You'll see all your files listed by file size.
How to view activity of “My Drive”
Click My Drive in the left-hand navigation.
If there is a specific file you want to see activity for, single-click on the file. Otherwise, to see activity for all the files in "My Drive," skip to step 4.
Click the
button in the upper right.
Scroll down in the box that pops up on the right-hand side of the screen to see activity organized with the most recent changes at the top.
How to Prevent Users from making shared files disappear from a shared folder
When you share a folder, lock down your shared folders to 'Can view' access only. If a user only has view access to a folder, they can’t remove or add files to it. This is the safest way to ensure someone doesn’t add or remove content from a shared folder. If you need to give edit access to files within a folder, you can make the files within the ‘Can view” access only folder editable by changing the “Share” setting to “Edit” of each file within that folder.
Click here for access to the original document: Greenwood - Google Drive Tip Sheet