Google Drive File Stream – Saunders Technical Support

Setup Your RIT Google Account

Employee accounts do not have Google Apps turned on by default. Please see Google Apps at RIT for details on how to opt in to Google Apps at RIT and to initially setup Google Drive.

Student accounts do not need to make any changes.

Installing Google Drive File Stream

To install Google Drive File Stream on your Saunders computer, please use Portal Manager. To install Google Drive File Stream on a personal computer, see https://support.google.com/drive/answer/7329379.

Using Google Drive File Stream

Once Google Drive File Stream is installed, you will see under This PC a new drive letter appear called Google Drive File Streams. This is where your Google Files will now be stored.

The Google drive file stream sitting within the This PC section of file explorer both highlighted in red

Once you open the drive, you will see My Drive and Shared drives. My Drive is where your individual files will be. Shared drives are those drives you setup for teams.

The inside of Google Drive File Stream showing My Drive and Shared Drives from your own google drive

A major difference between Google Drive and Google Drive File Stream is that the files are not stored on your computer. This means that if you don’t have Internet connectivity, you may not be able to open your files. You can manually specify which files/folders you want to have available offline by right-clicking on any file/folder and clicking on Drive File Stream \ Available offline. This will sync the files to your computer.

The right click menu of a folder or file with the ability to make it available offline highlighted in red

Once you have set this up, you will notice a difference in the icons on the files/folders. Clouds indicate the file/folder is only available online. Green checks indicate the file/folder is also available when offline.

Folder 3 Online Only

All of the folders within google drive file stream

Folder 3 Available Offline

All of the files in google drive file stream with folder 3 having a green check to signify its access offline

Multiple Google Accounts

It is possible to have multiple Google Drive accounts open at the same time. Here’s how to manage those settings.

Adding an Account

Start by opening the Google Drive preferences. To do so, click on the Google Drive icon in the system tray, then the settings cog in the upper right, and the Preferences.

The system tray with the google drive icon and the gear settings icon highlighted in red

Click on your profile icon in the upper right and then select Add another account.

The profiles viewable from the system tray

From here, you can add an additional account.

Changing Drive Letters

Google selects the next available drive letter, starting at G: for each account. Sometime, we want to modify what drive letter each account uses.

We recommend using G: for your RIT employee account and other drive letters for personal/student accounts.

Go to https://scb-sv-prt-3.main.ad.rit.edu:9192/ using your web browser and sign in using your RIT username and password.