Your UMass Google Apps account comes with many cool and useful features you may not know about. With 30 GB of storage it gives you plenty of space to back up your documents to the cloud so you can access them from any computer. No more need to back up your PowerPoint to a thumb drive and risk losing it the day of a big presentation. Google Drive is also quite useful when trying to send a file too big for an email. With your Apps at UMass Amherst email account you are able to send emails with a link to your drive where you can allow the recipient either viewing or editing abilities, which can be great for peer editing. There are a few ways to go about this:
1. Saving email attachments. When you scroll over the attachment with your cursor you will see either a downward facing arrow which means it will download straight to your computer’s hard drive. Or you will see the Google Drive symbol (similar to a recycling symbol). If you choose to download to your Drive a window will appear specifying which folder you wish to save the file to or if you want to create a new folder. When you have decided where to put the file click done and your file is backed up to the cloud!
2. Sending an attachment with your Google drive. When composing a new message scroll over near the attachment icon (paperclip) and the Google Drive logo should appear, click on it. 
You can either directly upload a file to send from your computer’s hard drive or something already in “My Drive”. Choose whichever document you wish to send and Google will create a link to your Drive in that email.
Before you send the link however you may want to change permissions for this document. To do this click the blue hyperlink before sending (depending on your browser you may need to allow pop-ups for Google Apps).
This will take you to your document within Google Drive. Click the blue share button in the top right, this brings up “Sharing Settings”. Under the title “Who has access”, for general visibility options click the blue hyperlink change next to “Anyone who has the link can view”. You can make it private, public, UMass only etc. If you want a specific person only to be able to view/edit the document you can invite them by typing their names or email addresses into the “Invite People” text box below. Here you will be able to decide with they can edit, view or comment. When you are done and decided how you want the document to be available click “send” and then “done”.
3. Upload the file from your hard drive. Once you have logged in to your Google Apps account you will want to click the apps icon (3×3 square block) next to your email address in the top right corner. When you do this all the different Google Apps will appear, click on Google Drive. 
Once your there you will be able to create folders and upload documents from your computer’s hard drive. In the top left corner you will see an icon that says: “CREATE”. If you click this you will be able to create folders to help your organize your drive as well as the creation of Google Docs. If you click the upward facing arrow to the right of this you will be able to upload either specific documents or folders to your drive.
4. Install Drive for your Computer. Still on our Google Drive page you should see an icon with a desktop screen and the Google Drive logo in it which says “Install Drive for your computer”, click this. 
This will prompt a download once the installer is finished downloading open it and run the installer like any other application. You will be prompted to login to Google Apps. It may not look like your apps login screen at first so login with your whole email address(netid@umass.edu) and password this will redirect the Apps at UMass Amherst login.
When the program is finished installing it will create a folder on your computer called “Google Drive”. Any folders within this folder should be synced up to your Google Drive on the web.
Just be sure that everything is synced before you shut off your computer before that presentation you have later on in the day. On Windows computers to check if everything is synced you may need to click the hidden icons button in the bottom right of your taskbar near the time, it looks like a small triangle. When you click this a small box will appear and you should see the Google Drive logo, if you scroll your mouse over you should be able to see the progress of the sync.
For Apple computers the procedure is pretty much the same, however the Google Drive logo should be at the top your screen (also near the time) and either clicking on the icon or scrolling over should show you progress of the sync.
Fore more information about Google Apps, including Google Drive, available to you as a UMass Amherst community member, check out the Apps at UMass Amherst F.A.Q.