One Month of Google Drive Made Me a Convert (Premium)

Bad news, Microsoft: I just spent the past month using Google Drive in Windows for all my work-related documents and storage needs. And it didn’t just work, it worked flawlessly.

This is particularly interesting to me because of the timing: With the release this week of Windows 11 version 23H2, Microsoft’s escalating enshittification of OneDrive integration in this version of the OS will be laid bare for all to see, especially those with the temerity to disable or in any way modify Folder Backup or otherwise use this service the way they see fit.

In early October, I discussed the ways in which OneDrive users might work around—not “fix,” necessarily—some of the service’s bad behaviors in Windows 11. Among the advice to consider was just switching to another cloud storage service; after all, Dropbox, Google Drive, and other services offer file system integration features similar to those from OneDrive. And I also recommended ignoring the default folder structures that OneDrive creates and uses for Folder Backup if this feature is problematic for you. (As it is for me.)

But I wasn’t just throwing ideas out into the world. I also took my own advice: I started experimenting with using Google Drive in Windows 11. And then I took the admittedly scary, but ultimately successful, step of moving all of my OneDrive content—work and personal documents, my personal photo collection, everything—outside of the default folders and into my own folder structure in OneDrive, a place that is safe from Folder Backup.

On the OneDrive front, everything works fine with my new folder structure. I have a “Paul” folder in the root of OneDrive with all my data in it. I can access my work archives normally. My phones back up their photos to the Camera roll folder in its new location without error or complaint. And should Microsoft silently enable Folder Backup behind my back, as it’s now done multiple times, I can rest easy knowing that the nonsense it syncs to OneDrive from my PCs will no longer commingle with my personal data as was the case before. It’s not perfect: I should be able to just turn off Folder Backup and have it stop badgering me and forcing me to use it, but that solution is coming. In the meantime, my workaround works, and I have some semblance of peace of mind.

But here, I’d like to focus on Google Drive.

And could not be more impressed. After a month of just working within this new system across each PC I’ve used, I turned my experience from an experiment into just normal usage. And while this should be obvious, there’s something to be said for, “it just works”: Unlike OneDrive, Google Drive works with me and for me, not against me. What a concept.

So what does it mean to use Google Drive instead of OneDrive in Windows? It means installing the Drive desktop client, configuring it accordingly, and then integrating it into your workflow. Mine is, of course, particular to my needs, and I previously discussed how I replicated my OneDrive-based “To-do” and “2023-10” folders in Google Drive and how I configured Google Drive in Windows 11 if you want the gritty details.

But the short version is that I work out of two key folders each day. The “To-do” folder contains the articles and other content that I’m currently working on (for this site, of course, but also the Hands-On Windows podcast and our Eternal Spring YouTube channel). And “2023-10” was, until today, the current monthly archive folder: When I’m done working on the content from “To-do,” I move/archive it in “2023-10” (or whatever the current month’s folder is). (And then every three months or so, I move that and a few other monthly archive folders into my actual work archive should I ever need to find something in the future.)

The size of the To-do folder goes up and down according to how much I’m working on, but it is about 2.12 GB at the time of this writing (and a bit bigger than usual). This folder is synced locally to each PC I use so that I can access its contents at any time, including when I’m offline.

The monthly archive folder (2023-10 in this case) grows in size over the course of the month and its total size varies from month to month. October’s folder was bigger than usual, at 6.5 GB. But with the switchover to November, it’s done growing and ready to be archived. But I do not sync this folder locally to any PC. There’s no need to.

Though it’s November now, and though the day is barely half over as I write this, what I’ve written today is at least somewhat representative of my daily workflow. Plus, it’s easier to look at, since there’s just a half day’s worth of files to consider.

This morning, I wrote three articles (all news articles, which is random, but Laurent is out today). And last night, I wrote a premium article that was still open in Word when I signed into this laptop this morning. And so each was moved into 2023-11 this morning, along with the “hero” images. These files are all archived.

My To-do folder, meanwhile, is full of all kinds of stuff. Which makes sense: It doesn’t get archived each month but just continues forward.

Moving forward, I will create new documents representing articles, some of which will be published immediately and then archived (in 2023-11), and some of which might need more time and will be moved into To-do. The hours turn into days turn into weeks turn into a month, and then I’ll move forward to 2023-12. And so on.

To date—and here I mean “for the past several years”—this work has all occurred in OneDrive. Those folders were in OneDrive, the To-do folder was synced locally from OneDrive, and I pinned these folders (plus “manuscript,” which includes the working files for the Windows 10 Field Guide) to Quick access in File Explorer so they show up in its navigation pane and are always readily available for drag-and-drop.

But for all of October, I worked out of Google Drive, not OneDrive. The To-do and 2023-10 folders I used were in Google Drive, and the File Explorer Quick access pins pointed to Google Drive. And I wrote a lot: Not including the book, which is a bit harder to measure, I archived (finished) 83 Word documents. And I created and/or modified (but did not archive/finish) at least another 43; those are in the root of To-do. (There are likely more in subfolders too.)

And for all that time—I literally write thousands of words every single day, seven days a week—and for all of that output, I can summarize the experience concisely. It just worked. There was no drama, no issues, nothing notable at all, in fact. It just worked flawlessly.

Google Drive did not once try to badger me into doing things its way. I just used the folders I wanted to use. I marked one folder (To-do) to be “Available offline” and left the other (2023-10) alone, meaning that its contents were not synced locally, just as I do with OneDrive. Google Drive did not display pop-up banner notifications. It did not advertise or annoy in any way. It just did its freaking job. There were no sync errors, no delays accessing recently modified files on different PCs. Nothing bad. All good.

I did have to make one adjustment. And this one requires an understanding of how Windows handles file copies by default. If you drag and drop a file from one location to another and the two locations are both on the same drive, then you will move that file. But if you drag and drop a file from one location to another and the two locations are on different drives, then you will copy that file. That’s the default behavior, and because I typically use laptops and always have OneDrive on the system drive, drag and dropping files (as when I archive a file by dragging it into 2023-10 or whatever) always results in a move. That’s what I want, and it works as expected.

Google Drive can be configured to work in a few different ways, but I chose to “stream” (as opposed to “mirror”) my Drive-based files locally, which emulates how OneDrive works. In this configuration, you can “stream” your Drive-based files through a drive letter (G: by default) or a folder (which is how OneDrive works). I chose the drive letter option for whatever reason, but that introduced an interesting issue: Dragging from the Desktop into the To-do or 2023-10 folders meant I was crossing a drive barrier. That is, the Desktop folder is on C:, but the To-do and 2023-10 folders are on G:, a different drive. So the default action was copy, not move.

You can override that on the fly in various ways, but I’d always forget and copy when I meant to move. And so I had to look up how to make move the default for inter-drive drag-and-drops. I found a Registry script online that does the trick, and I run that on all my PCs now when I first set them up so this works normally.

(If that’s too much for you, just stream to a folder: You can put that folder in your user folder like OneDrive does.)

Looking past this, it’s natural to consider whether it makes sense to switch from OneDrive to Google Drive for all of my work, given how well Google Drive has performed. This seems like a no-brainer, maybe, but it’s complicated. There is a value proposition here, compromised of many parts, that I need to consider. And if you are looking at this as well, where you land on each part of this debate will vary.

The big issue for me is that the OneDrive I use is part of Microsoft 365 Family, which I pay for, and there are a few benefits of this subscription that are unrelated to Google Drive.

First, I get the Office desktop apps, which is huge, as do the five other people on the subscription (all family members). And that is something I can’t get with Google Drive. It’s also something I can’t get by buying a standalone version of Office once: With the Microsoft 365 subscription, I can install those apps across whatever number of PCs I use, and I use a lot of different PCs every single month. This one is non-negotiable, so I will be paying for a Microsoft 365 Family subscription even if I choose Google Drive for storage. That fact ratchets up the barrier to switching and OneDrive would have to really suck for me to leave it behind.

Microsoft 365 Family also provides 1 TB of storage for each member (6 TB total) as part of its annual fee. That’s good, and it’s probably enough. And I could upgrade to more storage if I had to at fairly reasonable prices.

If you’re in a similar position, switching to Google Drive probably doesn’t make sense, even given OneDrive’s annoyances in Windows 11 version 23H2. But I am unique in that I am also paying for Google Workspace because I need it for work. And that subscription also gives me online storage via Google Drive, storage that is there whether I use it or not. And so I can decide to use Google Drive instead of OneDrive without worrying about additional costs. I have both and am paying for both regardless.

But you may be in a different place. And if you don’t need or want the desktop Microsoft Office apps and are operating as an individual (as opposed to being a company), paying for Google Drive may make more sense than paying for Microsoft 365 Family/Personal or OneDrive. This is especially true if you using Google Photos too.

You pay for Drive storage via a Google One subscription, which offers Drive storage allotments of 100 GB ($2 per month/$20 annually), 200 GB ($3 per month/$30 annually), and 2 TB ($10 per month/$100 annually), plus other perks like premium Google Photos editing features, Google Store rewards, and access to VPN by Google One.  By comparison, Microsoft 365 Basic offers 100 GB of storage for $2 per month/$20 annually (but no Office apps), Microsoft 365 Personal provides 1 TB of storage to one user for $70 per year, and Microsoft 365 Family provides 1 TB per user (for up to six users) for $100 per year. (That’s a total of 6 TB, but it has to be spread out to 6 different accounts.)

If I didn’t need Office, I’d switch to Google Drive immediately. But for now, I will keep using Google Drive for my daily work, and this month I’ll expand that use to include my book writing work. It’s just that good.