Google has announced that it has begun rolling out file storage capabilities as part of Google Docs, bringing it more in line with services like Dropbox and Microsoft’s SkyDrive, though they’re not direct competitors just yet. The company says that regular users of Google Docs will soon be able to upload up to 1GB worth of files to the service for free, and in any file format imaginable. The idea is to allow easier file transfers between machines and enable more cloud-based collaboration between users, even with file formats that can’t be opened with Google Docs itself.
According to a post on the Official Google Blog, the feature will be coming to all Google Docs users over the next several weeks (as usual, the company is doing a gradual rollout). The maximum file size per file is 250MB, and if you want more than 1GB of total storage space, more can be purchased. Not only does this help eliminate the need to e-mail yourself files (which can be messy and confusing with multiple versions floating around), it also allows you to share those files on the Web with other users just as you would with any other Google Doc file.
A file syncing service that allows you to share documents and folders with other collaborators on the desktop or the Web (Microsoft’s service, SkyDrive, is also very similar to Dropbox). Google’s addition of file uploading to Google Docs makes it much more similar to these two services than it was previously, though Google doesn’t offer a first-party solution for syncing these files to (or across) desktops. For now, it’s limited to the browser for most users, and the free storage level is lower—Dropbox offers 2GB for free, while SkyDrive offers 25GB.
The company did note on its Enterprise Blog, however, that users of the Google Apps Premier Edition (business users) have the option of using third-party applications to migrate and sync files. This includes Memeo Connect for Google Apps, Syncplicity, or Manymoon, though it’s clear from the comments of the original blog post that regular users would love Dropbox-like syncing functionality directly from Google.
Given Google’s usual stance when it comes to Google Docs, though, we’re not holding our breath for desktop syncing anytime soon. The company undoubtedly added this feature so that users would stay with Google Docs for their collaboration needs instead of wandering elsewhere, and Google Docs have always remained in the browser
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