![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.trustyetc.com\/trustyblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Google-Drive1.png\" "\\"Google")
<\/a>But Google Drive excels at sharing files with other people. \u00a0If your school uses Google Apps For Education (GAFE), each user in your domain can have five gigabytes of free cloud storage. \u00a0This free service is available to every teacher and every student in your district. We use GAFE at The University of Findlay. \u00a0I also use Google Apps with the private domain where I publish this blog. \u00a0In addition to that, I have a generic Gmail account which has its own Google Drive. \u00a0In all, I have three different Google Drive accounts that I actively use.<\/p>\nIt is not a problem to switch between my Google Drives using a browser. \u00a0I do this all the time. \u00a0The potential problem is the Google Drive App. \u00a0The app will only connect to one account. \u00a0If you disconnect from one account, all the information must be removed from the sync folder before you can sync to a different account or re-sync to the original folder.<\/p>\n
Despite the multiple-account syncing problem, you should be using the Google Drive App. \u00a0The app provides a way for you to keep all your files in a folder on your computer’s hard drive and sync additions, deletions or edits of those files to the cloud. \u00a0The Google Drive App gives you a free duplicate copy of your files in the cloud. \u00a0You only get five gigabytes for free, but that will go a long way as long as you don’t try to backup your music, videos or too many photographs. \u00a0Plus, I am about to explain a way that you can get ten times as much Google Drive storage at little or no cost.<\/p>\n
There is a way to use one master account to access all your other accounts using either your browser or the Google Drive App. \u00a0It requires a small amount of file management and some dragging and dropping. \u00a0Here is how I connected my Findlay account and my TrustyETC domain account to my master account. \u00a0My master account uses the Google Drive App, so the contents of all three accounts are copied directly to my computer’s hard drive.<\/p>\n
Open one of your\u00a0subordinate accounts in a browser. \u00a0To make sharing easy, create one folder in the subordinate account and then move all the contents of the account into that one folder.<\/p>\n
Here is my UFindlay account after the above has been completed. \u00a0Notice there is only one folder and that folder is named in a way that is easily identifiable as my Findlay account.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n If you open this one folder, you will see all the files I have been working on for the last few years. \u00a0These date back to my original Google Docs before Google Drive was around.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I did the same with my TrustyETC Google Drive.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Each of the above folders should be shared with edit rights<\/strong> with your master account. \u00a0I used the email option to share the subordinate with the master account. \u00a0This will cause the subordinate accounts to show up in the master account. \u00a0To get the subordinate accounts into the master account’s Google Drive App folder, the shared folders must be dragged to My Drive in the master account. \u00a0After each account is dropped there, the shared folders will show up in the main directory (not just in the shared directory) of the master account.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n When those subordinate accounts are dropped into the master My Drive, all folders from the shared accounts will be synced to your hard drive through the Google Drive App.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Here’s the bonus. \u00a0Each account has five gigabytes which is calculated independently of the master account. \u00a0In other words, my Google Drive just went from five gigabytes<\/strong> to a possible fifteen gigabytes<\/strong>. \u00a0I have not been able to find a limit on this sort of chained storage in the Google Drive documentation.<\/p>\n There is a way to get 50 gigabytes of Google Drive for next to nothing. \u00a0If you own a domain, connect it to Google Apps For Business<\/a>. \u00a0The connection is free and comes with ten free accounts for your domain. \u00a0Each account gets five gigabytes of free storage. \u00a0I am sure all ten accounts could be connected to one master account for a total of 50 gigabytes of cloud storage.<\/p>\n Happy Googling!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was an early adopter of Google Drive. \u00a0It was added to my domain the first day it was available, even though I have used, and continue to use other cloud storage solutions. \u00a0Microsoft Live Mesh has been my main … Continue reading <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n