Google Drive puts most of the Google tools your team needs in one place. You can create, share and collaborate on Docs, Sheets and Slides directly from Google Drive by clicking the “+ New” button in the top-left corner.

You can connect Google Drive with other apps outside the Google Workspace umbrella. You can also access all these third-party apps on the Google Workspace Marketplace. For instance, you can integrate with Adobe Acrobat to edit and e-sign all your PDF files. Photopea, Audacity Online and Zoho Writer are some other third-party applications you can link with Google Drive. 

Google Drive is one of the best tools for collaboration. With that, mistakes do happen, especially when distributed teams are collaborating on different files. For all your files, Google Drive provides file version history within 30 days or until you reach 100 versions.  

We tested the version history feature by uploading a Word document, opening it in Drive, deleting most of its contents and leaving only the first paragraph. The top bar of the page has a version history section showing the number of edits and the available versions. This feature allows you to manage multiple versions, restore a version, make a copy or name it. 

Google owns Gemini, a large language model that you can use for various tasks. You can access Gemini within Google Drive through Google One’s AI Premium plan. Gemini allows you to draft emails in Gmail, and write invites and resumes in Docs. You can also generate visuals in Slides by typing a few commands. 

The Gemini Advanced feature on the AI Premium plan can explain, understand and generate high-quality code. The model is also designed to respond to text, image and code inputs.

Drive has desktop apps for both Windows and macOS devices. We downloaded the Google Drive for Windows app through the browser for testing purposes. The desktop app lets you set preferences for syncing folders from your computer and the cloud. 

Google Drive’s desktop app allows you to set sync options. You can “stream” files, which will store them only on the cloud without taking up local storage, or you can “mirror” files, which will store them on both. 

You can download Google Drive mobile apps for Android and iOS. We tested Google Drive on Android against the web interface counterpart. The Android app functions similarly to the web interface, as you can upload, share, view and collaborate on different files and documents.  

The files you store on the mobile app also sync with the rest of your devices in real time. You can manage all your photos on a separate app known as Google Photos. However, all the photos are stored on Google Drive.

Drive has one of the best free cloud storage plans, giving users 15GB of storage. The free plan lets you store, share, collaborate and sync files across your devices. However, this space may fill up fast, as all your email attachments, videos and photos get backed up there. You can get more storage space by subscribing to Google One. 

All the paid plans are included in Google One and Google Workspace. Upgrading to a Google One account is the simplest way to get more storage. You can also opt for Google Workspace if you have a team and want to collaborate. 

Google One’s cheapest plan is Basic, with 100GB of storage at $1.99 monthly. You can save a few bucks if you pay annually at $19.99. Next is the Premium plan, with 2TB of storage at $9.99 monthly. This plan is also cheaper if you pay an annual fee of $99.99. 

Lastly, the AI Premium plan gives 2TB of storage at $19.99 monthly. It lets you access Advanced Gemini and use Gemini in Docs and Gmail. 

There are high-tier Google One plans with 10TB, 20TB and 30TB of storage. However, these plans are only visible to users who currently have a paid plan.

Business Starter is the cheapest Google Workspace plan, with 30GB of pooled storage per user at $6 per user per month, annually. The Business Standard plan gives 2TB of pooled storage per user for $12 per user per month, annually. 

The Business Plus plan offers 5TB of pooled storage per user at $18 per user per month, annually. There’s also an Enterprise plan with custom pricing. 

Google Drive has one of the biggest free plans with 15GB of storage. It comes second only to MEGA, which has 20GB of storage on its free plan; you can read more about it in our MEGA review. Google Drive’s paid plans are competitively priced compared to other cloud services. We can compare its Premium plan, which has 2TB of storage, with several similar alternatives. 

With Sync.com, 2TB will cost you $8 per month of storage, which would cost $9.99 per month on Google Drive. Sync.com uses zero-knowledge encryption, while Google Drive doesn’t. With Google Drive, you can share with up to five other users, whereas Sync.com only allows one user for this plan. You can compare the other features in our Sync.com vs Google Drive article. 

Dropbox is another close Google Drive competitor. It will cost you $9.99 per month to get 2TB of storage on either of these cloud platforms. However, Dropbox allows only one user, while Google Drive allows up to five people for a similar plan.

Pricing Plans	Google Drive	Sync.com	pCloud	Dropbox	MEGA
Free Plan	15GB	5GB	10GB	2GB	20GB
Annual Price for 2TB of Storage	$99.99	$96	$99.99	$119.88	$108.69
Monthly Price for 2TB of Storage	$9.99	$8	$8.33	$9.99	$10.86

Upload Speeds

First Attempt	Second Attempt	Average
0:07:04	0:07:13	0:07:09

Download Speeds

First Attempt	Second Attempt	Average
0:07:26	0:07:23	0:07:25

Google Drive has lightning-fast uploads, and it even came second on our list of the fastest cloud storage for uploads. 

The download speeds were also fast, but slightly slower in comparison, and Google Drive earned the fourth spot on the same analysis article. 

Our test was done on a remote Windows computer hosted in Dublin, Ireland, with a connection speed of 1 Gbps throttled down to 100 Mbps to ensure stability. The test folder was a 5GB folder with assorted file types like high-definition videos, audio and images.

You can share files or folders through email or by generating a link while using Google Drive. To share files using an email, enter the email and set the user permissions. These permissions include three options: viewer, commenter or editor. You can also decide to alert the recipients once you share the files.

It’s also possible to share files and folders by generating a link and sharing it through social media or email. The permissions for the link are the same as those for sharing via email.

One of the major issues with Google Drive is that it doesn’t let you set passwords or expiry dates for the shared files. This means recipients can reshare the contents to anyone else with a Google account, and the file data will only become unavailable when you revoke access. You can read our full guide to Google Drive file sharing.

Google Drive allows you to sync files across your devices as long as you download its mobile and desktop applications. Once you download the desktop app, Google Drive will create a folder on your local machine. You can back up your photos, contacts and files, and choosing automatic sync will make them available on different devices.

Google Drive doesn’t fully implement selective sync but uses what it calls “one-way sync.” This lets you select specific folders on your computer to upload to the cloud and vice versa. For instance, you can set up a one-way sync from your Drive to your device. Any changes made to your Drive will automatically download to your computer. However, changes made on the local drive won’t reflect on the cloud. 

Drive also lacks block-level sync. This means that whenever you change a file, Google Drive uploads the entire file to its cloud. Platforms with block-level sync like OneDrive upload only the updated parts of a file, saving time and bandwidth. 

Drive encrypts data at rest and in transit using AES 256-bit and TLS encryption, respectively. All the data stored on Google servers is encrypted to ensure that unauthorized users can’t access it. The same happens when transferring data from your devices to Google Drive’s servers.

Google Drive lets you set up 2FA to make your account more secure. Users can bind a phone number to their account so that it always sends a verification code to that number before they can log in. You can also use an authenticator app that generates a prompt on your mobile device before you log in. Check out our comprehensive article on Google Drive security. 

The platform enables you to control how recipients interact with the folders and files you share. Recipients can access levels to this information as viewers, commenters or editors. As a viewer, the recipient can only view the files and folders. A commenter can only leave notes on the shared files and documents. Finally, an editor can modify the content in the files and folders.

Encryption	Description
At Rest	AES 256-bit
In Transit	TLS

Advanced Encryption Standard (AES): Google Drive uses the AES 256-bit protocol to encrypt your data while at rest. Google converts plaintext into ciphertext, ensuring that the plaintext is only available to authorized parties. Even though the encryption algorithm is public, the keys for decrypting the ciphertext remain private. 

Transport Security Layer (TLS): TLS ensures secure communication between the user’s device (the client) and Google Drive (the server). It creates an encrypted tunnel, ensuring that unauthorized parties can’t read the data exchanged between the server and the client. TLS encrypts the data before transmission. It then authenticates the endpoints and decrypts that data on arrival.

Physical Server Security: All of Google’s data centers have several security layers. They have secure perimeter defense systems, biometric authentication and comprehensive camera coverage. All these data centers also have highly trained guards that can handle any threats 24/7. 

Security Standard Compliance & Audits: Google products like Google Drive undergo regular independent verification. For instance, you can learn how Google achieves compliance controls through SOC 2 and SOC 3 independent reports. Google is ISO/IEC 27001 certified in Information Security Management.

Zero-knowledge encryption is the gold standard for privacy for modern cloud storage. The best zero-knowledge encryption cloud services ensure that only the data owner has the key to decrypt data stored on the cloud service. 

Google Drive doesn’t implement zero-knowledge encryption, which means that Google employees could potentially access your files or hand them over to others. However, you can implement encryption that is similar to zero-knowledge encryption using a third-party tool like Cryptomator with extra configurations.

When you create a new account, Google collects your name and phone number based on the Google privacy policy. You can also add your physical address, profile picture and contacts under the account management portal. 

Google also collects the content you upload, collect or receive from others. This means Google Drive collects information you write on associated tools like documents and spreadsheets. 

Google scans all the files and folders you upload on its servers for viruses and copyright violations. Such scans can collect data like the devices you use, your location information and details on demographic groups. The fact that it collects this information means that your data is not that private. 

Google has a bad privacy policy. Anything that personally identifies you, like your billing information, name and email address, falls under personal information. Google claims it does not share your personal information with individuals or organizations outside Google. However, it can share such data if, for instance, you use Google Home to make a reservation. 

Google also says it can share personal information with “trusted persons or businesses” for external processing. It uses service providers to help deliver its products and services, and to operate its data centers. The platform can even share your data with domain administrators or for legal reasons.