A Power User’s Guide to Google Drive for Remote Work

How to use Google Drive’s hidden features, upgrades, and extensions to get more done from just about anywhere

Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash

Thanks to the global shutdown, a lot more people are learning just how hard it is to actually work from home. And sure, the first few days of not wearing pants to “work” may have felt like a nice change of pace, but that feeling quickly fades when deadlines start piling up.

We’re all in this “remote work” thing for the long haul. It’s not just for us freelancers anymore. And if you’re one of the record 3.28 million Americans that filed for unemployment this week, the right remote work setup can be the tool that helps you launch that much-needed freelance business or side hustle for a little extra income.

The good news is that most people can still get “real” work done from home. And that’s because you already have access to one of the best remote working software platforms in the world.

And it’s connected to your Gmail account.

Here’s an in-depth power user’s guide to Google Drive so you can optimize Drive like a professional to work from just about anywhere.

Best Google Drive remote working features

Let’s start with a quick overview of Google Drive’s best features for remote work so you know what you’ve got out of the box. All of these are included in the free version that comes with your Gmail account:

1. 15GB of free cloud storage. I strongly recommend upgrading to 100GB of storage for $1.99 (more on that in a sec), but 15GB is a good start.
2. Email large files (up to 10GB). Just select the “Share with Drive” option in your email to get around dinky 25MB email attachment limits.
3. Work on documents and spreadsheets offline. This is huge for remote work when you can’t get a reliable signal or you know you’re going offline (like a long flight). The best part is that files automatically sync the changes you made when you’re back online.
4. Optical character recognition. This feature feels like magic. Basically, you can pull the text from any PDF (and even many photos and images) into a…