From tiny bytes to terabytes of data — how to upload them all to your Google Drive.

Updated June 2021

It seems that we can never have plenty storage space. Statistics show that an average US citizen uses upwards to 5.4 square anxiety of self-storage space forking out upward to $88.85 every calendar month. And these figures are on the rise.

Things are slightly easier with digital files. Sure, the volume of digital assets produced by individuals and businesses is going through the roof, and everybody seems to exist on the lookout for convenient information storage. Still, the professed data-geddon still seems very unlikely — with so many deject storage services on the market.

Photo by Steve Johnson from Unsplash

Ever since Google created Google Bulldoze, everybody is blessed with at to the lowest degree fifteen GB of free storage space in the cloud. This space is even larger for businesses that use Google Workspace. Alongside a corporate email, avant-garde security, and other functionalities, you as well become unlimited cloud storage. Simply recollect of it — unlimited storage!

G Suite

In case you are still wondering if Google Workspace is a good fit for your business concern, have a wait at our Google Workspace Maximizer. In that location we compiled all the advantages of Google Workspace & gave you an idea of how y'all can extend your cloud storage with Pics.io DAM.

Stuck on starting upload — not again

Hither comes the funny thing — having and so much storage space doesn't necessarily mean that information technology's ever easy to manage your storage. Admit it, how many times have you found your Google Drive failed to upload? My Google Drive won't upload is the nigh common complaint on Google Drive Help.

In instance files not uploading to Google Drive, read about the most typical problems in Google Drive and their troubleshooting. Explore a few more avant-garde fixes for your Google Bulldoze upload bug too every bit recent updates released past Google Drive.

Run through this brusk checklist to solve an upload failure in your Google Drive with minimum endeavour:

  1. Bank check your network connection.
  2. Reconnect your Google business relationship.
  3. Check the available storage space.
  4. Restart Backup & Sync (more on this below).
  5. Endeavour running Google Drive as an administrator.
  6. Disable the anti-virus, ad blockers (AdGuard, for instance), and Firewall, used for network security.
  7. Brand sure to plough on the images in your browser.
  8. Remove the cached information in your browser.
  9. Reupload the browser and/or go incognito.
  10. Double-check file names, size, types, etc. Rename or resize them, if needed.

… And when we've got Google Drive running like clockwork, we can turn to uploading files.

How to upload to Google Drive?

Upload a file to Google Drive

If you lot work on a small scale, uploading files to Google Drive is pretty piece of cake & straightforward. At that place are two methods to upload files to Google Drive.

Method 1: Employ drag-n-drib to upload files to Google Drive

1) Open up your Google Drive business relationship and scan the folder that you desire to upload your files into.

Open your Google Drive account and browse the folder that you want to upload your files into

2) Adjacent to this window, browse the location of the file on your PC. In the example below, the files are located on the desktop.

Browse the location of the file on your PC

iii) Drag-and-drop the file or files from the folder or desktop to your Google Bulldoze. The upload process will begin.

Drag-and-drop files from the folder or desktop to your Google Drive

Method 2: Use the New Button

i) Open your Google Bulldoze account and discover the folder where y'all desire to locate files.

Open your Google Drive account and find the folder where you want to locate files

ii) Click the New button in the left upper corner, so choose File upload.

 Click the New button in the left upper corner, then choose File upload

iii) This will open up the upload window. And so, observe your file or files and choose them. Click Open up to start the upload procedure.

Upload a folder to Google Drive

1) Open your Google Drive account and scan the folder where you want to upload another folder.

Open your Google Drive account and browse the folder where you want to upload a folder

two) Click the New button in the left upper corner and select Folder upload.

Click the New button in the left upper corner and select Folder upload

3) In the newly opened window, cull the binder or folders yous'd similar to upload and click Open . The upload process will brainstorm.

How to auto upload to Google Drive?

To automate this manual process, yous can endeavour 2 Google products: Google Drive Sync (for private users) & Bulldoze File Stream (for corporate Google Workspace users). Additionally, yous shouldn't ignore the benefits of Google Drive mobile apps.

Let's take a closer look.

Google Drive Sync — automatic upload for personal accounts

Google Bulldoze Backup and Sync is a smashing characteristic that helps you automatically create backups of your files from your computer, camera, or even SD card.

Backup & Sync icon

You merely need to install Fill-in and Sync Google Drive on your device and cull a folder that yous want to be continuously backed up to GD. In this way, all the files you put in this folder on your device will be automatically saved in your Google Drive. That will save you lot lots of time on uploading them to GD and you lot will always have them close at hand.

My MacBook Pro
MacBook Pro Sign In

And if yous work a lot with photograph and video content, there's another great thing well-nigh Fill-in and Sync. But like Google Photos, information technology gives you a way to upload your photos and videos at a slightly reduced quality than they are originally. And if you save them this way, they won't consume up space in your storage at all!

Drive for Desktop (formerly Drive File Stream) for business accounts

If you are a concern or a school that is a Google Workspace user, in addition to unlimited storage, yous have numerous other features: corporate email, superior admin command, avant-garde security, a unique Shared Drives option which is a peachy mode to avoid file buying issues, etc. Plus, you can benefit from installing Drive for Desktop.

BTW, if you want to learn more than about Google Workspace , check out our Google Workspace Maximizer - a free guide to Google Workspace & this information technology tin do for your concern.

How to get the most of your Google Workspace

I great advantage of Drive for Desktop is that you lot tin meet (or stream if y'all like) all your cloud-based files on your PC without actually having them stored on your PC. These are just mere placeholders that don't occupy your disk infinite. This should be some great news if you deal with huge videos and high-res photos that are notorious space-guzzlers.

Our users from RocketBrand successfully use Drive for Desktop to upload pretty decent file batches on Google Bulldoze, and it works very well for them. It especially helps them to avoid possible errors connected with permissions. RocketBrand is a branding bureau that accumulates content from numerous contributors, then being able to piece of work with assets without running into ownership errors is a key priority for them.

RocketBrand has even made a short video tutorial where they showed how they use Drive for Desktop to upload their assets to Google Drive.

A short video guide how use Google Bulldoze file stream to import files.

Besides, don't miss our Beginner's Guide to Drive for Desktop (formerly Drive File Stream).

Google Drive app for iOS and Android

Machine upload to Google Drive through iOS and Android apps is also a skillful thought. This is a cracking feature when yous abruptly demand to articulate up space on your mobile device but don't have admission to your laptop at the moment.

Here is how to upload files to Google Drive on your mobile device:

1) Go to the Apple tree Store or Google Play Market and download the Google Drive mobile app.

two) Open the app and login into your account.

3) Click Files in the lower correct corner.

Click Files in the lower right corner

4) Browse the folder where you want to locate your file or files.

5) Click the New push on the correct (the screenshot above).

half dozen) Click Upload.

Click Upload

7) Choose Photos and Videos or Browse, depending on the content you want to upload. "Scan" allows yous to look through the contempo files and iCloud Drive. Then, grant the permissions to browse your phone library.

Choose Photos and Videos or Browse, depending on the content you want to upload

8) Browse your phone and cull the file or files yous desire to add. Click Upload . The upload process will commencement.

Click Upload

9) When the upload is completed, you can click Locate to discover the uploaded file or files faster.

Click Locate to find the uploaded file or files faster

How to upload multiple files to Google Bulldoze

So far uploading to Google Drive shouldn't seem much of a hassle. Even so, when information technology comes to huge enterprises with terabytes of info, trying to upload them in bulk can bring the entire system to a standstill.

Google API

Google API — customizable upload for large volumes of info

Hither's where Google API can help. Google Workspace customers can use information technology to upload, edit, and remove a big number of files in batch. In particular, it helps to perform a Resumable Upload — this allows you to resume your upload after in that location was an pause in the menstruum of data due to communication failure. And that saves you the trouble of restarting your upload from the beginning.

Yet, y'all should conduct in mind that using Google API involves some programming skills. If you want to avoid this, recollect virtually employing tertiary-party utilities for your bulk upload to Google Drive. With this short list, yous'll know where to start with:

  • Pics.io migration service will help y'all move as much info as yous need. The tool migrates 4 GB per minute. Plus, it can motility your metadata, keywords, file descriptions, etc;
  • Rclone helps y'all sync your files beyond cloud storage. The tool copes perfectly with uploading multiple files to Google Drive;
  • Duplicati is a free backup software that tin also help you with bulk upload;
  • Web customer allows you lot to interact with the web services and gather the candy data from there. Mind that this option is for tech-savvy users only.

Google Cloud Storage — for huge enterprises

Google Cloud Storage, which is a sort of the big brother for Google Drive, is positioned by Google as a serious enterprise service. It's primarily used by large organizations for hosting server backups & collecting meaning amounts of belittling data that is necessary for conducting their concern.

In addition to unlimited storage space, Google Cloud Storage also boasts of improved security, advanced storage tiers, access to object'due south metadata, and other features that are not bachelor elsewhere.

Google Cloud Platform

There are several ways to transfer huge amounts of information to Google Cloud.

  • If you need to move your information to Deject Storage from another online storage provider, such as Amazon S3, and yous have to resort to Storage Transfer Service. It's a multistage operation that involves programming, simply is very flexible every bit y'all tin gear up up preferences for your transfer in a number of ways.
  • If you want to save a lot of time and effort, y'all tin apply for offline data transfer with the aid of Transfer Appliance. Basically, Transfer Apparatus is a loftier-capacity storage server that you fill up with your information and ship it to a specific location where it is uploaded to Google Cloud Storage. With this apparatus, yous can securely transfer up to a petabyte (!) of data on a single appliance. The rates are quite steep, but if you consider the speed of uploading (45 days VS usual 1095 days for a petabyte of data), information technology probably seems worth it.

For what it'due south worth, Google Deject Storage is not really fabricated of everyday routine work with digital assets, so many businesses are still meliorate off with the usual Google Workspace corporate packages. To move your files from Google Cloud Storage to Google Drive, you once once more accept to resort to programming with the assist of Google Cloud API.

Read about the difference betwixt Google Bulldoze and Google Cloud Storage in detail.

How to use Pics.io to upload large files to Google Drive?

Pics.io is an advanced Digital Asset Management working on top of your Google Drive account. The tool allows you to access files more easily, allocate them, add together revisions, and collaborate on the digital assets with your team. Information technology's a must-have app if:

  • You cannot observe files in your Google Drive;
  • Y'all're tired of the mess in your digital library;
  • You lot work with formats unsupported by Google Drive like psd or indd files;
  • You need more granular team permissions,
  • You'd like to get more visuality such as thumbnails for all your files, etc.

If you apply the Pics.io DAM service, things piece of work pretty much automatically when you need to upload large files to Google Drive. You add together files to Pics.io & run across them synchronized with Google Drive, organized in the same way equally you arranged them in DAM.

With DAM, you can supplement your files with whatever metadata to make them searchable. The title, dates, descriptions, and whatever other types of data like color, flags, or the number of people will be automatically transferred to your Google Bulldoze from Pics.io. You'll be able to download them together with a detail asset and continue to work on them outside your account in Pics.io.

Read more about the difference between DAM vs Google Drive.

Certain. There are quite a few services that tin can assistance you deal with this event.

For example, at that place's Drive Uploader. It's peculiarly useful if you desire other people (not members of your squad) to upload files directly to your Google Bulldoze. For example, if you're a instructor, it's a smart move to allow your students to drop their works in a specific folder in your Google Drive where you can find them later.

Google Drive icon

If y'all already have your files stored in the deject, e.g. in OneDrive or Amazon Deject Drive, and yous want to motion them to your Google Drive, there's another absurd app that can come in handy — MultCloud. It helps y'all transfer and/or sync your content between 2 different cloud storages, and the list of platforms they support appears to be quite exhaustive.

EaseUS is another tool that will aid you lot automate your uploads to Google Drive. The tool is a Windows backup software that allows y'all to schedule regular uploads to Google Drive. You could choose daily, weekly, monthly, or upon request uploads. And your files will be backed up to Google Bulldoze automatically.

How to speed upwardly Google Bulldoze upload?

In case yous're dissatisfied with your upload speed, read how to speed upward your Google Drive upload. Here are a few starting points:

  • Archive your file or split information technology into a few pieces if possible;
  • Pay attention to immune file sizes in Google Drive. Maybe y'all're just exceeding the limits;
  • Also, mind 750 GB limit for uploads per day;
  • Remove other devices from your network, articulate upwards the cache, and delete temporary files — do anything to meliorate your upload speed;
  • Use Speed Uploader extension for your browser or attempt any other dispatch software.

No matter what you utilise — Google Workspace or a elementary Google Drive, you have a variety of upload solutions to choose from. And if you are still wondering about the difference between a usual Google Drive & business Google Workspace business relationship, cheque out our Google Workspace Maximizer. It's a free guide to all the useful features that Google Workspace has to offer to your business organisation.

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