Navigating your Drive

Since Google Drive is your repository for cloud-based files, being able to navigate and search effectively is important. While the process is quite easy, there are a few tricks to help you be more efficient. 

To access your drive, start at drive.google.com

You may need to login, but once you have, you should see this screen. At this point, you have quite a few options. 

Creating New Documents

 

By clicking "New" - You have the option of creating a new Google Doc, Sheet, Slides, Form, or Drawing. For most categories, you have the option to create from a blank document or choose a template. 

To help you with organizing your files, you can also create a folder at this point. Simply drag your files into that folder to place them there. 

 

Searching your Drive

Since Google Drive is a collaborative software, you will need to search for items that you have created and also items that have been shared with you. Luckily, if Google does anything very well, it is search. One way to make sure you can find things easier is to make sure your "view" is designated to the "List View". Toggle the icon in the purple box to change it.

 

Now that you are using "List View," there are a lot of options for navigating and finding correct files and folders. While you may not have any currently in your drive, it can get quite full in a short amount of time when you start using it frequently. 

 

 

At the top of your screen, you can search your entire drive by document name. To the right of the search bar, there is also a drop-down button in which you can filter your search by date, file types, locations, etc.  

To the left of the screen, there is "My Drive". That's where the files you create live. Just below that is "Shared with me". This is where files that have been shared with you go. We will talk about sharing later in this module. 

Just below the search bar, is "Owner" and "Last Modified". These headers allow you to organize how files and folders are listed.