You’re not the only one!  A few months ago Google Docs morphed into Google Drive, although they are not exactly the same.  Google Docs is a way of storing and sharing your files online (in the Cloud). The idea is that if you store your documents in the Cloud you can access them from anywhere, and you can share them with selected colleagues.

You can in theory create your documents or spreadsheets online in Google Docs format and they can be shared and edited online. But in practice, this means learning a new editing system that isn’t anywhere near as powerful as Microsoft Word or Excel, and it depends on other people using Google Docs format as well.  However, you can upload your Word or Excel documents or pdf files for your colleagues to view online, and they can download them if they wish, and you can download their shared files.

Enter…Google Drive – if you download this to your PC or laptop (or smartphone), this now downloads your files automatically to these devices and keeps them synchronised with the online files.  This is the confusing bit – if you uploaded the documents in the first place (before Google Drive) to Google Docs you will have a duplicate set of documents on your PC!  You can of course in future save your documents to the Google Drive set of folders on your PC, but be careful to check who you are sharing your documents with, as they will get uploaded online automatically.

The general feeling in the IT world at the moment is that there are quite a few bugs in Google Drive at the moment, and quite a lot of confusion reigns, and it might be worth looking around at other Cloud storage solutions.  Google Drive gives you 5 GB free, and there are other free Cloud Storage solutions such as Dropbox (gives you 2 GB but some would say less confusing and more reliable), but if you have a company of any size and security is an issue, the general opinion is that it is better to pay for a managed storage solution.  Look into it carefully before you act, and if you are searching for information on the Internet, check the date of any articles you might find, because new solutions are appearing all the time.