Upload files and folders to Google Drive

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You can upload, open, share and edit files with Google Drive. When you upload a file to Google Drive, it will take up space in your Drive, even if you upload to a folder owned by someone else.

Types of files

Documents
Images
Audio
Video

Upload files & folders

On your computer, you can upload from drive.google.com or your desktop. You can upload files into private or shared folders.

On your computer, go to drive.google.com.
At the top left, click New File upload or Folder upload.
Choose the file or folder that you want to upload.

Tip: When you use the Drive web app or Drive for desktop to upload files, the creation time is set as the upload time. The modification time shows the last time that the file was modified on the local source device or service. This means that the modification time could be before the creation time.

Drag files into Google Drive

On your computer, go to drive.google.com.
Open or create a folder.
To upload files and folders, drag them into the Google Drive folder.

Use Drive for desktop

Install the application on your computer.
On your computer, you'll find a folder called 'Google Drive'.
Drag files or folders into that folder. They will upload to Drive and you will find them on drive.google.com.

Save PDFs from Chrome to Google Drive

Important: To use this feature, make sure that you're not in Incognito mode or guest profile.

When you open certain files, like PDFs in Chrome, you can save them directly to your Google Drive. This keeps your files organised and accessible across all your devices without downloading them to your computer first.

On your computer, open Chrome.
Open a PDF file.
At the top right of the PDF viewer, select Save to Drive .
Select the Google Account that you want to use.
- If the account that you want isn't listed, select Use a different account.
- If there's no signed-in account, enter your Google Account.
Select Save.
After the upload completes, you can find a confirmation message.
- To open your saved file, select Open in Drive. You can find it in the 'Saved from Chrome' folder.

Save from Print view

Important: Make sure that you install the Save to Google Drive extension.

On your computer, open Chrome.
Open the page, image or file that you want to print.
At the top, click File Print.
In the window, select Save to Drive.
- You can also click See more Save to Drive.
Click Print.

Convert documents into Google formats

If you want to upload files like Microsoft Word documents, you can change a setting to convert files.

Important: You can only change Google Drive settings from your computer.

Using a computer, go to drive.google.com/drive/settings.
Next to 'Convert uploads to Google Docs editor format', tick the box.

Upload files with the same name

If you upload a file with the same name, Google Drive will upload the file as a revision of the file already in Google Drive.

To keep both files:

On your computer, go to drive.google.com.
Upload a file.
Click Keep both files.