Map Google Drive as a Windows 7 network location

Like many people, I have a Google Drive account, which syncs with a folder on my personal laptop, located at home.

I would like to be able to map that Google Drive as a folder on my work computer, as I do not have administrative rights to install Google Drive on that computer.

Sure, I can always navigate to the site in a browser, and download|edit|upload files in that fashion, but it would sure be nice to be able to create documents at work, and save them - finished or not - straight to the Google Drive!

Solution 1:

Here is a way to assign a drive letter to any and up to 3 of your cloud drives, including Google Drive, without having admin rights, without installing any software on the computer you are using, and without having to have a local drive that syncs with your cloud drive:

1. Get a free account at storagemadeeasy.com
2. Choose Google Drive from the list that drops down when you click "add a new provider".
3. Enter the login credentials for your Google Drive.
4. Let storagemadeeasy sync with your Google Drive (file names only for access).
5. Call up the "map network drive" window. (In Windows 8, right-click on "Network" from the "This PC" window)
6. Pick a drive letter.
7. Use this for the path: "https://webdav.storagemadeeasy.com"
8. Click "Next" and you will be prompted to enter you StorageMadeEasy user id and password.(If you try this before setting up the account you'll still see the login dialogue. Try this if you want to make sure it will work on your pc once you've set up the account.) Be sure to check to "save the login info".
9. Click enter and the drive will open showing your Google Drive as well as The StoreMadeEasy drive (5 gigs free) and up to 2 more drives if you wish.
10. In the main computer window you can rename the drive to something like CloudDrive or any 10 character name you prefer.

I saw this described on YouTube for Windows 7, but it works just as well for Windows 8.1. You can add and delete files just like on a NAS.

I think this is the type of solution you were looking for. On Android, the ES File Manager has built in support to directly access your Google Drives, as many as you like. It seems like Windows should be able to do that too, but I haven't been able to find a network path to Google drive that Windows will recognize except for the one through StorageMadeEasy. I'd still like to know how to do that, but this works.