Create a GMail Drive in your "My Computer" using GMail as the storage medium.

If you are like me, who never really get a chance to use the 2GB Gmail storage and don't prefer Dropbox at all, You can use a software called "GMail Drive" that uses your Gmail account as a storage medium and adds a Virtual Gmail Drive to "My Computer".

GMail Drive is a Shell Namespace Extension that creates a virtual filesystem around your Google Mail account, allowing you to use Gmail as a storage medium.

GMail Drive creates a virtual filesystem on top of your Google Gmail account and enables you to save and retrieve files stored on your Gmail account directly from inside Windows Explorer. GMail Drive literally adds a new drive to your computer under the My Computer folder, where you can create new folders, copy and drag'n'drop files to.

Ever since Google started to offer users a Gmail e-mail account, which includes storage space of 6000 megabytes, you have had plenty of storage space but not a lot to fill it up with. With GMail Drive you can easily copy files to your Google Mail Account and retrieve them again.
When you create a new file using GMail Drive, it generates an e-mail and posts it to your account. The e-mail appears in your normal Inbox folder, and the file is attached as an e-mail attachment. GMail Drive periodically checks your mail account (using the Gmail search function) to see if new files have arrived and to rebuild the directory structures. But basically GMail Drive acts as any other hard-drive installed on your computer.
You can copy files to and from the GMail Drive folder simply by using drag'n'drop like you're used to with the normal Explorer folders.

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.

Please note that GMail Drive is still an experimental tool. There's still a number of limitations of the file-system (such as total filename size must be less than 65 characters). Since the tool hooks up with the free Gmail Service provided by Google, changes in the Gmail system may break the tool's ability to function. I cannot guarantee that files stored in this manner will be accessible in the future.

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Tried it. Could login to it only 1-2 times during the 2 months I installed it some time back.

gmail attachment limit is 25MB. I think it won't allow us to store a file having size more than that!

Yeah that's the sad part, the maximum limit for each file is 25Mb. I'm using it mostly for storing some important docs and notepad files. No pictures or stuff..

Yeah, been using it from some months. I think, its pretty useful, in the aspect that we can just drag n drop the files, inside the drive. And access it later, at any computer on GMail.
I find it worthy to use, since, we can create folders in the GDrive (My name for it). And can keep files in separate folders, which helps in easy management! :))

P

How safe is Gdrive ? Safe to give away ur email ID & password ?

there's always a risk.but mostly these kind of applications use APIs and state that they do not store passwords.i don't think they can survive in the market (legally and commercially) if they store password.

PraKs said:
How safe is Gdrive ? Safe to give away ur email ID & password ?

It would be useful to say here, that GDrive is a product of Google only, and not any 3rd party tool!
So its like using GTalk. I don't think, there would be any danger to use it!

P

@vineet,
Can you pls give official statement of google on this - GDrive is a product of Google only ?

^no it is not!

Wikipedia:

Caveats

GMail Drive is an experimental package that depends on but is not provided by Google. Changes in Google's Gmail system may render GMail Drive temporarily or permanently inoperable.
The current GMail Drive does not support accounts that are with Google Apps. The Gmail Program Policies do not explicitly ban GMail Drive, shell namespace extensions, or the use of Gmail storage space for files other than e-mail. Nonetheless, immoderate use of GMail Drive may trigger Google to temporarily suspend a Gmail account.

Looks like I was way too wrong this time! Apologies, for not confirming the truth first!
GMail drive looked too good to Not be a Google's product.

I uninstalled and changed the Google's password right after I read above post! Thanks for opening my eye!

I guess that is for immoderate use, and GMail drive's a trustful program.

vineet369 said:
GMail drive looked too good to Not be a Google's product.

they are, in a way, cheating gmail/google off their space by using it for something it is not intended to

How could someone do that to themselves?

But yeah the icon and all can make anyone believe that it is a google product.

Google never denied to use it for that purpose, did it?

N

Dropbox is BEST. I dont see any reason why you should use it over Gmail Drive.

@talktoanil: I dont want to alarm you, but even dropbox have came under security breach speculations!

Dropbox, the wildly popular online storage system, deceived users about the security and encryption of its services, putting it at a competitive advantage, according to an FTC complaint filed Thursday by a prominent security researcher.

Source: Dropbox Lied to Users About Data Security, Complaint to FTC Alleges | Threat Level | Wired.com

Now I don't say drop box isn't a reliable service. But you better not put any sensitive or personal data on it.

P

Would go with Skydrive explorer, Can be used with Hotmail ID & store 20 GB of Data.

Anyone used it ?

I have used Skydrive but Microsoft seem to be dead against Android. It support Symbian and Apple devices even but no support for Android (AFAIK, please correct me if I am wrong).

Dropbox is much much better in this regard.