Google Drive Customer Review

Google Drive is an awesome file and folder sharing service, especially if you're already utilizing GSuite or a free Google account. It's extremely easy to use with granular permission settings for everyone and anyone that you may need to share a file on. Google Drive also has excellent version or activity tracking for files.

Google Drive could be a bit more transparent about their security compliances and certifications, but otherwise, is the ultimate file sharing tool.

It's extremely simple to share documents or folder on Google Drive. Sharing can either be done via an email address or sending the direct shareable link to the desired individuals. You can share as many individuals as you would like, and with GSuite for businesses you can share with anyone who has the same GSuite email domain. 

Unfortunately, unless you create a Google Group within your account, you aren't able to share with a group of people (i.e. the marketing team). 

You can share a Google Drive file or folder with someone not using the service, you'll just want to change the permission settings to "Anyone with the link" and send the link to that person either via email or another communication channel. 

Google Drive obviously integrates with other Google products very easily, including Google Docs, Sheets, GCal, Gmail, etc. In addition to the basic, Google Drive can integrate with just about every other major office tool that you use,  such as Slack, Zapier, Salesforce, etc. Google also offers a Google Drive API so that you may integrate the service into your own product or work tool. 

Google Drive has an excess of permission settings available. If you have GSuite for your business, you can choose to share within your GSuite (@businessname.com). Within that, there's the option to share a file or folder as view only, comment only, or edit. If you'd like to share outside of your GSuite or don't have a GSuite, you may share a file or folder via email with the same permission options. 

All sharing on Google Drive is conducted via email or through a sharing link that you can provide to individuals. Once someone is shared on that file or folder, you can remove them as the owner of the document. You have granular options on sharing such as allowing for view/comment only status to have the option to download, print, or copy or allowing editors to also be able to invite/uninvite those shared on the document. 

Google Drive has awesome activity tracking for files and folders that you house within the platform. You can right click any file or folder and select "View Details" which will bring up a right hand side tool bar. In this tool bar, you will see recent activity and edits of the document, who is shared on and what permission access they have to it, and much more.

There's not much left to say, since Google Drive does such an excellent job of spelling out the changes that are made to a document or folder so clearly. 

Google Drive search functionality is very thorough. Essentially, any file that has been shared with you via email (whether you've saved it to your Drive or not) will be visible by searching for a word or phrase associated with that file. You can search by the individual that shared you on the file or by file type as well. Within the search results, those that you have most recently opened will appear first. 

Organization is simple with the option to create folders for various topics or categories. Google Drive recently added a "Priority" tab that allows you to mark documents as priority to quickly resurface them. You can also search through the other tabs such as "Shared with Me" or "Recent" to find what you're looking for. 

Google's privacy policy can be read in full, here. It is very transparent and explained in non-tech language which is really helpful for the average user. It's pretty standard, but I do want to point out a few things that I really appreciate about it. They disclose what information is kept and how long Google retains that information. Google provides a direct link for you to control your privacy settings, and even some simple little videos to walk you through any privacy concerns you may have. 

Google offers great learning guides or help tools for their programs, including Google Drive. I would say 9/10 you can find a solution to the objective you're looking to complete via Google Drive through their support guide.  Google also offers a community forum, so you may be able to either find or post your question there to get a solution.

Google's actual customer support seems fairly unreachable. Obviously they're a large corporation with a ton of moving parts, but they really try to funnel you through the forums and help guides. If you do pay for GSuite, you can reach Google Support via email or phone, again really try to push you to find the answer through online resources first. 

Google is not very transparent about security compliances or certifications, especially in regards to specific products. The most that I could seem to find is a generic webpage about online security & protection, which you can view here. While I do, maybe slightly naively, believe that Google takes security seriously, I wish that they would more clearly provide their security measures especially in relation to file sharing. The positive in all this is that they offer a quick security check-in to make sure that your Google account settings are up to par for the security you're looking for. 

Google provides you with 15GB of storage for free! 1GB is about 200 songs worth of storage, so 15GB would be 3,000 songs for reference. If you're paying for GSuite as a business, you receive 30 GB of storage space for the basic subscription. For the Business or Enterprise subscription plan, storage is unlimited for 5 or more users, or up to 1TB if there's less than 5 users. 

For more details on the capacity and storage of Google Drive, you can view Google's GSuite pricing plans here. 

When you "delete" a file in Google Drive, it actually just goes into your trash bin -- just as it would if you were to remove a file on your laptop. From there, the files or folders in the trash remain until you actually "Empty the Trash" or permanently delete them. This is assuming that you own the file. Keep in mind, those that you have shared the file with can make a copy, but there is a way to permanently delete a shared file.

Additionally, if a file is not owned by you and you "delete" it from your Drive, it simply removes the file from your Drive but does not officially delete the file as the owner must be the one to do that. 

Google Drive, as long as you're signed into your Google Account, syncs flawlessly across various devices, operating systems, and browsers. Whether it's a Mac, Windows, iPhone or Android Chrome, Edge, Safari or Firefox -- it will all work smoothly for Google Drive.

Setting up a new device is as simple as logging into your Gmail account from the device you wish to have access on.