1. Davidson Technology & Innovation
  2. Communication & Collaboration
  3. Email, Calendar & Collaboration Services

Set Up Your Davidson Google Drive Account

Google Drive replaced Dropbox as Davidson’s primary cloud storage and file sharing solution on December 13, 2021. All files and folders from Davidson-owned personal and departmental Dropbox folders have now been migrated to Google Drive. For more information, visit the project support page.

Log in to the Google Drive Website and Set Up Your Account

  1. Open a browser on your device and navigate to drive.google.com
  2. In the upper right corner of the Dropbox site, click on Go to Drive.
  3. Enter full Davidson email address and click Next. This will bring up the normal single sign-on screen.
  4. Authenticate with full Davidson email address and password.
  5. Authenticate with Duo.
  6. You should now see your My Drive.

Download and Install the Google Drive For Desktop Application

  1. While in Drive, click the gear icon at the top of the screen.
  2. Select Get Drive for desktop.
  3. Click Download & Install Drive for desktop.
  4. Choose either DOWNLOAD FOR WINDOWS or DOWNLOAD FOR MAC depending on your operating system.
  5. Once the download completes, run the installer.
  6. Accept all the defaults.
  7. Once the install is complete, you'll be asked to login. Enter full Davidson email address and click Next. This will bring up the normal single sign-on screen.
  8. Authenticate with full Davidson email address and password.
  9. Authenticate with Duo.
  10. You can now access Google Drive from your task bar and a File Explorer or Finder window.

Introduction to Google Drive

Automatic Synchronization

  • You now have a cloud-based Google Drive account linked to a Google Drive folder on your local hard drive. The magic of this combination is that anything you copy into your Google Drive folder will automatically be uploaded to the cloud. Once uploaded, it is accessible at any time from any location simply by logging into your cloud account. 

Smart Sync

  • Once a file is uploaded to the cloud, Google Drive stores your file in the cloud but keeps only a link to that file on your local hard drive. You can access the file at any time by double-clicking on it, whereupon it will be downloaded automatically.
  • The huge benefit of this is that you can store gigabytes of data in the cloud but Google Drive will only store a fraction of that amount locally. When you need a specific file, it is quickly accessible.

Sharing Files

Request Help