If you spend a lot of your day working in Google Drive, creating new documents, slides, sheets, and forms just got a lot easier. This week Google introduced a bunch of new shortcuts for Google Docs that allow you to create new files without having to go to Google Drive proper in order to do so.

Got an email address? Use a computer? Is that a smartphone in your pocket? Then you need to get yourself some cloud storage. Having an always-accessible repository of your most important photos and files makes sharing files with friends less of a hassle and grants you peace of mind. With options from every major tech company, you might find yourself drawn to one or another based on the tech you use on a daily basis and what each service offers.

Despite all the convenience and quality of Google’s sprawling ecosystem, some users are fed up with the fishy privacy policies the company has recently implemented in Gmail, Chrome, and other services. To its credit, Google has made good changes in response to user feedback, but that doesn’t diminish the company’s looming shadow over the internet at large.

If you’re ready to ditch Google, or even just reduce its presence in your digital life, this guide is here to help.

Automated backups are nice, but even better is the ability to initiate one yourself. Until recently, that wasn't possible on Android, however, it appears Google is now supporting the option, though it's unclear which devices or versions will ultimately get the feature.

It’s not a stretch to assume you probably use Gmail—it seems like most of the world does, these days. That reality has created consternation over some of the recent privacy and security-related changes to Gmail and Google Chrome.

The subject of file backups and online storage came up the other day at a Lifehacker staff meeting, and resident door-holder Nick Douglas chimed in that his solution for backing up his laptop was easy: He never keeps any important files on it. Everything — and he means everything — lives in the cloud.

Android: Earlier this week Google announced that thanks to a partnership with WhatsApp, backups from the app will no longer count against your Google Drive storage limits. That means it’s an even better idea than ever to use Google Drive as a backup for your messages.

Google is revamping its online storage offerings with a new-look, new-name product dubbed Google One. How much will it cost and what's going to happen to existing Google Drive customers? Here's what you need to know!

If you use Google Docs (or Sheets, or Slides) you may have noticed a recent pop-up letting you know that "Editors can now see view history". Without any context, the message is a little confusing - even disconcerting if you're the paranoid type - but there's nothing to be worried about. Here's what you need to know about the latest feature coming to Google Drive.

The latest update to Google Drive's collaboration tools now means you can comment on files created in Microsoft Office just as you would in Google Docs, Sheets and Slides - without opening a third-party app.

In today's fast-paced world, staying on top of your daily to-dos is no easy feat. While tools like Google Calendar and Drive help organise your workload, having your tasks spread across multiple apps tends to make things slip through the cracks. That's where Moo.do Premium comes into play.

Backups are wonderful. They provide peace of mind, a way to protect your future self from potential misery. Unless, of course, those backups get deleted with almost no warning, kind of like what Google will do for your Android device if you don't use it for a couple of months.

Last week, Google made a confusing announcement that could easily scare the crap out of 800 million people: Google Drive's going away -- but actually, no, it's not. However, there are a few things you should know about the changes that are coming.

This week, Google announced that it's replacing its Google Drive apps for Mac and PC with a more functional version, Backup & Sync. You'll still be able to use your cloud storage from Google Drive in the same way, but the updated apps for Mac and PC will let you sync individual folders anywhere on your desktop, as well as manage your cloud photo uploads. Support for the current versions of the Google Drive apps will end on December 11, with the apps shutting down completely on 12 March 2018.

Google's Backup and Sync software will be taking over completely from Google Drive for PC/Mac later this year. Support for Google Drive will terminate on 11 December 2017 and the service will shut down completely on 12 March 2018. For G Suite admins, that means you’ll see settings in the Admin console for Drive File Stream. Google is turning Drive File Stream on today for all customers.

If you're not prepped to handle an unexpected loss of your personal data, Google has you covered. It finally released its Backup & Sync service, which lets you upload and sync files from any folder on your computer or connected drives to Google Drive without moving them around. It won't replace a comprehensive backup service such as Crashplan, but is definitely something to look into if you have no real backup plan.

While Google Drive (and it's competitors such as Dropbox and OneDrive) do a great job of making files available on multiple devices, they aren't true backup tools that retain files indefinitely. Google is remedying that with the release of Google Backup and Sync for macOS and Windows.

If you don't have an offsite cloud storage plan (and you really should), Google's newest update to its cloud storage service Google Drive is ready to fix your gaping data backup hole by letting you pick which folders on your device you'd like to back up to Google Drive instead of forcing you to put the files into a single Google Drive folder. It's called Backup & Sync.

One of the biggest hassles with having multiple computing devices is being able to access your data in the office, at home and when travelling. Back in the 1990s, when I started working in IT, Microsoft had a crack at this with the Briefcase feature that was part of Windows 95 but it was pretty poor.

By the mid to late 2000s, cloud storage services came to the fore, making it easy to access up to date versions of our workfiles wherever and whenever we wanted. But how do we use these services and get the most out of them?