GMail was the first web-based email service that gave its users 1GB of storage space. Since then the storage was raised to 4 GB and now its 7+ GB and counting – an ever-increasing space. Not all users need this much space for their email inbox. If there was some other way you could use all this extra space?
I think the some intelligent developers were thinking the same thing and the GDrive was created. GMail Drive is a Shell Namespace Extension that creates a virtual file system around your Google Mail account, allowing you to use Gmail as a storage medium.
Gmail Drive Usage:
Once you download (link below) and install GMail drive, you would see a new drive icon in your My Computer window. You can create new folders, copy and drag-n-drop files to this drive. (You may or may not be asked to restart your computer) In my case – I did not need a restart.
In order to start storing files on your GMail drive you need to first login to your GMail account. Just right-click on the GMail drive and click login –
You would get a window where you can input your GMail id and password and you would be logged in once you enter correct details.
You can choose whether to auto-login every time by checking the auto-login box.
Once you click on the ok button on login screen – if your credentials are verified you would see the logging into GMail screen. It might take a minute or two – try not to disturb the window.
Once you are logged in you can right-click on the GMail Drive and click on properties to see how much space are you using now.
As you can see it shows us the amount of space we are using on our GMail account. It seems I have a 7 GB+ space that can be used. 🙂
GMail Drive – Uploading Files and Checking Them Online:
Now that the GDrive is a part of your Windows Explorer – You can just drag and drop files into it and they would be instantly synched to your GMail account. Here we placed two text files in the GDrive and a minute later they were shown in our GMail inbox online.
The files you put in your GDrive are stored online as email attachments. Both the text files have their own emails and they are in the GMail account as attachments.
Because the Gmail files will clutter up your Inbox folder, you may wish to create a filter in Gmail to automatically move the files (prefixed with the “GMAILFS ” letters in the subject) to your archived mail folder.
Conclusion:
That’s about it – now your Gmail account is your online storage drive, however users should be aware that support for this tool may suspend at any time if Google decides to block its use. But till the time comes you can always enjoy the 8 GB free storage space that Google provides you with each Gmail account.
