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tedpenner

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Map Google space to a Drive Letter

I understand from some older sources that there was once a way to allow the 1GB of mail storage available for free with a Google mail account, to act as drive space whereby you could copy files back and forth VIA FTP or some like method.  Ideally, I would like to map that space to a drive letter or find another free option for such a capability?
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Gary Case
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I'm not aware of any mechanism that will map the space to a local drive letter; but if you're goal is a convenient place to archive files, you can create a mailbox on your gmail account (say "Stuff to Archive") and send yourself (as an attachment) any files you want preserved -- then just move them from your inbox to the "Stuff to Archive" folder (you could even do this automatically with a message rule).

Note that Google's free space is now up to 2.5GB per account :-)

... however, with the price of hard drives these days, 2.5GB isn't much to worry about.   The more significant advantage of maintaining files online is that they provide a convenient backup for your data.
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SimonUK

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... Nice tool.   It automates the process I described above (send files via e-mail; and retrieve them the same way).   They suggest using an "archived mail" folder, but it's the same concept as a "Stuff to Archive" folder.   But it does create a nice local "drive" that lets you see what you have archived and access it somewhat transparently (obviously both saves and loads are a bit slower, since they each generate e-mails and a load will have to wait for the e-mail to be received).

The only probem with this tool is the frequent "breaks" in its function => based on the release history, it seems to "break" about every 3-4 months; although they have been releasing new versions that restore the drive functionality.   As I noted above, 2.5GB is not a lot of storage these days;  I'll stick with a "real" drive -- but it's a neat concept anyway.   ... and as I said earlier, it's definitely a nice idea for backup files; or files you want to have available from anywhere you can get to an internet connection.
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SimonUK

Yes - when it works it's really handy!

If Google released a little tool themselves to do the job they'd probably clean up in the domestic internet-based backup market !
... except if they did that I suspect the service would no longer be free.
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Thanks Simon, that's a nice tool.  I'm going to have to start doing that.  I do have some things with witch I need availability from anywhere and this is a great option!
Pleasure, thanks for the points.

Simon