Accessing Your Google Drive Offline

In most cases, Google Drive is a great spot for creating, storing and sharing documents, spreadsheets and presentations. The only time it is inconvenient is when you don't have an internet connection and would like to access your Google Drive files.

Given that summer is upon us and many of you may want to access your documents from the cottage, the boat, the campsite, or even planes or trains, here is how to sync your documents so that you can still work offline!

The following information is provided by Google about using Drive offline:

• You'll first need to set it up. Enabling offline access is easy, and it takes just a minute. As soon as you do, all of your Google documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and drawings will be made available for offline viewing and editing. Follow the directions below to enable your offline access.
• Set up computers individually. If you want to enable offline access on both your laptop and desktop computers, you'll need to set it up twice — once on each computer.
• It's Chrome-only. Offline access is unavailable in other browsers. But if you haven't already, give Chrome a try!
• It's not currently available for all of your stuff. Check out the chart below to see what types of files you can view and edit while offline.
• It only syncs files that are in "My Drive". Any documents that have been shared with you and you haven't dragged into My Drive will not be accessible offline.

Enabling Offline Access

1. Open the Chrome browser and go to drive.google.com.
2. Click "More" on the left sidebar part of your screen. Select "Offline".
3. The Chrome browser has apps just like your smartphone or iPad. You need to install the Google Drive App within the Chrome browser. Click the blue "Get the App" button. If the app is already installed, it will say so and you can skip this step.
• You will be taken to the Chrome web store. Click Add to Chrome to add the Google Drive App to your Chrome browser.
• Return to your Google Drive - select "Offline" under "More" in the left sidebar
4. On the right side of the screen, click the blue "Enable Offline" button. It may take a few minutes to sync your files.

Once you have enabled offline access, you can access your Google Drive files straight from your Chrome browser. You will notice that you are offline because all icons in Chrome's new tab will be greyed out except for the Google Docs and Drive icons.

  If you have any questions or would like some help setting up offline access, just ask!