Category Archives: Google Apps

Get +2 GB on your Google Drive for FREE!

Google is giving away +2 GB of free space for free, until 11th February!

What do you have to do?
Go to this page and go through a brief security update, that is updating your devices, phone number, 2-step authentication, etc. For a few seconds, you will get + 2 GB of storage on Drive. Do it now!

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The offer is to celebrate Safer Internet Day 2016, and if you already got this offer last year, no worries! You will get an extra 2 GB!

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Google original post: here.

Google Drive VS OneDrive VS Dropbox VS BOX vs AmazonZocalo

Product comparison between:

– Google Drive
– OneDrive
– Dropbox
– BOX
– AmazonZocalo

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Sync folders with Google Drive / SkyDrive / DropBox

Sync Any Folder with Google Drive, SkyDrive and Dropbox

A major issue that I have is that I want to sync my folders with these cloud services, but I don’t like the fact that I have to copy or move all the files to some special folders.

I was searching for a way to map my folders in My Documents or wherever I had them and still have them sync with the cloud services. I learned that the best way to do this is to use symbolic links in Windows. A symbolic link is in big lines similar to creating a shortcut to a folder, but it’s more permanent and acts like a separate folder.

How to sync Folders for Dropbox / SkyDrive

To achieve for Dropbox or SkyDrive, I have created an example to walk you through the process. As you can see below, I have my SkyDrive folder on the left and a folder called SkyDrive Test in My Documents.

Skydrive folders

So I want to sync the SkyDrive Test folder to my SkyDrive account folder without moving it. To do this, you have to open an elevated command prompt and type in the following command:

Skydrive symlink

mklink /J "D:\SkyDrive\Test" "C:\Users\Aseem\Documents\SkyDrive Test"

So let me explain what we are doing here. We are creating a symbolic link (symlink) using the mklink command. It takes two parameters: the first is the location of the symbolic link you want to create and the second is the source directory. As you can see, I don’t need to crete the Test folder in the SkyDrive folder, the mklink command will do that for me. You can name that Test folder anything you like.

So I am telling Windows to create a symbolic link folder in the SkyDrive folder and the source for that folder should be the SkyDrive Test folder. After the link is created, you’ll see the Test folder inside of SkyDrive folder with a shortcut icon:

Skydrive folder after

If you open that folder, the path will show as if it’s stored in D:\SkryDrive, when it actually stored in SkyDrive Test under My Documents. So now you can add files to the folder from either location and both will have the same contents since it’s actually one folder, not two. That’s it!

SkyDrive and Dropbox both support symbolic link folders and will sync everything up to the cloud like shown below:

Skydrive synced folder

Sync Folders to Google Drive

Unfortunately, Google Drive does not yet support symbolic link folders and if you create one, it will not sync the folder up to the cloud. However, you can still use symbolic links, just in a slightly different way. I’ll show you what I mean with an example.

Google drive folder

Here I have my Google Drive folder on the left and a folder called Random in My Documents that I want to sync to Google Drive. In order to do this, we first have to move the Random folder to the Google Drive folder. Now that folder will get synced up to Google Drive like normal.

Google drive after move

Ok, so now we can create a symbolic link in the My Documents folder that points to the Random folder in the Google Drive folder. This is the opposite of what we did above for SkyDrive. Here is what the command would be for Google Drive:

Google drive symlink

mklink /D C:\Users\Aseem\Documents\Random "C:\Users\Aseem\Google Drive\Random"

Now we are creating a symbolic link in the Random folder where the source folder is in the Google Drive folder. Again, you don’t need to create the Random folder in My Documents. Also, you can name it anything you want, it doesn’t have to be the same name as the source folder. Also, I have to use quotes in the command if there is any space in the path.

Google drive after symlink

Above, you can see the Random folder has been created as a symbolic link pointing to the source folder in Google Drive. It has the same shortcut icon on it, so you can tell it’s a symbolic link folder. Again, opening it will actually be opening the original source folder. Anything you add to the folder there will be now be synced to Google Drive since it’s working off the original source folder and not a symbolic link folder.

Google drive synced folder

Enjoy!

What is the maximum name length for a document on Google Drive?

This is a question that most of the people ask, but when they are trying to search for answers it is most likely that they will not find some concrete information about it..

So the limitations for Google Drive: maximum characters name length 32767 characters.

Example:

I created a file name on Google Drive, that has a name of 11974 characters:
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1However, if you are using Google Drive for Windows or Mac, or you are trying to download that file on one of your stations running Windows or Mac OS it will be automatically resized to around 240-260 characters, because the maximum length for this Operating Systems is 260 characters (including the file type, ex: .pdf / .docx / etc.).

As you can see in the example below, I downloaded the newly created document from Google Drive, and the MAC OS automatically resized the name accordingly to the Operating System’s limitations: 
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So a complete table with maximum name length:
– Google Drive – maximum characters name length is 32767
– Windows OS  – maximum characters name length is 260
– Mac OS – maximum characters name length is 260

Gmail – How to drag and drop attachments to your desktop

Gmail makes it easy to drag and drop attachments to your desktop or any other location.
This feature works with all supported browsers, but it is recommended to use Google Chrome. It works on both Mac & Microsoft operating systems.

You just have to click on the attachment, and then drag and drop it wherever you want and release the mouse (for large files, you may see a progress dialog).

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