 Google Drive is perhaps one of the best tools on the market for anyone working and collaborating online. It's cloud-based services keep things organized all in one place. And in this video, we will show you how to get the most out of Google Drive. We'll teach you how to easily store your files, how to share files and folders with collaborators. And finally, how you can collaborate with others in real time. A key feature in Google Drive. Rod here. Welcome to Burn to Learn. In this video, we will be using the online version for Google Drive. In our next video, we will show you how to download and install Google Drive on your computer or mobile device. For now, let's dive into Google Drive storage services. Accessing your files has never been more important. These days, the safer option is to use the cloud-based services Google Drive makes available. Google Drive offers you three ways to store your files in the cloud. Drag and drop, keyboard shortcuts, and creating files and folders. Let's see the first one. Once you have opened Google Drive in your web browser, you will be presented with this view here. Here's where you can drag a single file or multiple files. Now they are safely stored in the cloud. Second, let's look at a few handy shortcuts we can use to help speed up this process. Our cloud-based Google Drive account makes it easy. You can simply use shortcuts like Shift plus U to upload a file or Shift plus I to upload a folder. If you would like to make your files available in more than one folder, just hit Shift Z and Google Drive will ask you what folders would you like to have your files show up in. Third, creating files and folders. To create a file, simply right-click and select the kind of document you want to create. You can choose a document, spreadsheet, or slide. What's great about this is that all these files are compatible with Microsoft Office like Word, Excel, or PowerPoint to name a few. Files tend to build up over time. Fortunately, Google Drive makes it easy to keep things organized using folders. This practice is especially helpful when you have a large number of files that belong to a particular project. Let's take for example these files here. They belong to a school project called English Writing Exercise. Add them to their very own folder. To create a new folder, move your mouse to this button here in the upper left corner. Click on New and select Folder. You can also right-click anywhere within your Google Drive and you'll see the same options. Now let's give our folder a name. To do this, just right-click the folder and select Rename. We will name ours English Writing Exercise. Now let's select all of these files here by dragging over them with our mouse. From here, it is just as simple as dragging the selected files to our newly created folder. We also want to give you a cool tip when it comes to organizing your folders. Take your organizing strategy to the next level by categorizing your folders using colors. To do this, simply right-click on your folder and then select Change Color. Now that's a colorful idea. The beauty of Google Drive is that it incorporates Google's powerful search function. This means file names and even texts within files can be searched. In effect, if you can remember keywords or phrases within your document or document title, Google Drive's search tool will pull up the relevant files. Additionally, keep in mind that the better you organize your files, the easier it will be for the search tool to find them. Having a consistent file naming convention, for example, including dates and or times, as well as a good descriptive name in your title, will make the search easier. Understanding how storage works will give you the edge you need to stay ahead. Sharing and collaboration are up next. We want to thank everyone who has subscribed. Please take a second to help us reach our goal of 100,000 subscribers by subscribing and clicking the bell. Sharing information face to face could be downright dangerous these days. Google Drive makes it easy and safe to share files. There are three main options, one on the document, two sharing by email and three by link. Let's dive in and see how to get started. If you are working on a document, spreadsheet or slide, you can share them from within the same file. Here we have a Google Slide. If you need to create a presentation, you can use Google Slides instead of PowerPoint. Let's share our presentation. Again, if you are using Google Docs or Google Sheets, the alternative to Excel, these same steps apply. To do this, simply move your mouse to the upper right hand side of your screen. You'll see the share button. Click on it. Here you can add the email or emails of people you want to share the file with. On the right side, you'll see the editor button. If you click on it, you will see three options. If you choose viewer, those you share the file with will only be able to view the file. Commenters will be able to view and leave comments. Finally, editors will have full access to the document and will be able to make additions or remove text, images or formulas. Now let's get back to the second and third sharing options. Right click on your file and you will see two choices, share and get a shareable link. Let's try share. Click on it and follow the instructions. Note that the instructions for share are the same as for a document. Now let's select a shareable link. It couldn't be more simple. Just right click on the document and then choose get a shareable link. A link will be copied to your clipboard, which you can simply paste on an email or text message. A very important feature in sharing documents on Google Drive is that of setting restrictions on your shared documents. There are three main restrictions that you may find useful when sharing your documents. Let's look at the first two here. Click the gear wheel in the top right corner of the share dialog box here. You will see two options appear. These are selected by default. The first one you see here allows you to restrict whether your collaborators can share your document. The next option here below allows you to restrict their ability to download, print, or copy your document content. We mentioned three methods. The third method is that of setting an expiration date on shared documents, effectively limiting access time to your content. This feature in particular is limited to Google Drive's G Suite accounts. Please watch our video entitled Google Drive Pro Tip How to Set an Exploration Date for Shared Documents. We have linked it in the description below. So that's it for storage and sharing. Up next, collaboration. This video is sponsored by The Burn to Learn T-shirts. Finish this video and then be sure to get your t-shirt in our store by clicking the link in the description box below. Teamwork has never been easier. In fact, there are more ways than ever before for your team to work together online. Google Drive really shines through by allowing you and your team to work on shared documents simultaneously in real time no matter where your team members are in the world. Popular services such as Google Documents, Spreadsheets, and Slides, to name a few, have collaboration features built in for shared documents that make collaborating so easy within Google Drive. We will look at chat, commenting, simultaneous editing, and version history. Chatting with collaborators is a great way to brainstorm. You can access the chat tool by clicking on the chat icon next to the collaborator avatars here. This allows you to discuss ideas, offer suggestions, or edits in real time while the document is open. Commenting helps your team to make notes of their review of the document and suggest edits. Let's leave a comment. First, we will select a word, paragraph, or right-click on the selected cell in a Google spreadsheet you want to comment on. Now let's click on the comment icon found here in Google Docs or here in the menu items in Google Sheets. Type our message and save our comment. Comments can be reviewed and replied to by any member of your team. Just click on the comment box, type a reply, and hit reply to save. Once a comment has been reviewed and resolved, the comment is stored in the comment history. You can access the comment history by clicking the comment icon here at the top right of your page next to the share button. You can see a list of all the comments live or resolved. You can reopen a comment by clicking here on reopen. This will restore the comment to its original location. Side note, you can direct your comment to a specific collaborator using the At symbol followed by the name of the collaborator. Notice that when you type the At symbol, a list of contacts will appear. We'll choose Jose. You can also email your comment to a collaborator by typing the At symbol followed by their email address. Voila! In seconds, your comment has been sent to your contact. Simultaneous editing is by far one of the most powerful tools when it comes to collaboration. Once a document has been shared and the collaborator has been given editing privileges, the collaborator can access the document and edit it right alongside other editors. There's no need to look for this feature because you'll see any changes made for any member of your team in real time. With so much collaborating going on, Google Drive helps keep your documents updated and nicely organized with version history. Version history can be found on the file menu here. Click on it and you will see two options. The first option is to name the current version. Here you can give a custom name to this version of your document. We'll name ours according to the day. The next option, see review history. If we click this option, you will see to the right of the document all of the saved changes. These are grouped into days and then by user. By clicking on a version, we will be shown how that document looked at that moment in time. From here, we have several options. First, we can click on the restore button above. This will restore our document to this particular version. Second, by clicking on the options dots here, we are once again given the option to name the version. Let's name this one best as it's the best version of our document. Finally, we are given the option to make a copy of this version. This will allow us to store this version on a separate document in our Google Drive. Be sure to re-watch this section of the video to really master how collaboration can benefit your team. And don't forget to collaborate with our team. We want to thank everyone who has subscribed. Please take a second to leave a comment. Just navigate to the comment section here below and let us know what you think. Hopefully this video helps you to get a better understanding of Google Drive. Be sure to check out our Microsoft One Drive video and our upcoming video on Dropbox. This has been Rod from Burn to Learn. Thanks for watching.