As we know, Google and Microsoft aren’t best friends. Thanks for this, Google-lovers don’t have any official apps like for Google+, Youtube or Google Drive. There’s only one official Google app in store! But we will focus today on the last one, because many Windows users (like me) uses Google Drive as their go-to cloud file storage. As mentioned, they don’t have any Windows 10 app for this, but as always – we got other developers.
This time we will talk about “GDrive.NET”, which is available in Windows Store for Windows 10 (Mobile). It’s also available for Windows (Phone) 8.1, but with old UI – we will not focus on that version today. Also, you can use Win32 Google Drive application, but not everyone like to have all your files on hard drive, that’s why Microsoft released new OneDrive app few weeks ago.
Overview
So let’s jump right in! Overall design is based on Microsoft’s Adaptive UX, as seen in Windows 10. On the left-hand side we got hamburger menu, which hides navigation bar. On the center we got selected window view, and on the bottom – we got actions bar. Also on the top there’s search option. The design is pretty nice!
Features
First option is called “files”, which as name shows – gives you access to all of your files on Drive. From here you can browse, upload (via Drag&Drop, or with button on the bottom bar) and download all of your files. You can create new folder by button on the bar down below (I wish if you could make it via right right-click). You can basically do everything what you need!
Second is pictures option, which can manage your all your Google Pictures, but it’s very basic – basically it allows you only to view pics. After that we got latest files, starred, trash, shared, download/upload progress, and here we stop – GDrive.NET supports multiple accounts! So if you got few accounts – you can quickly switch between them! Also, accounts page shows most important data, like storage left, and trash size. Lastly we’re in settings page, which allows you to set Windows Hello authentication or PIN code to login. You can select light and dark theme, automatic picture synchronization, and many more!
Opinion
Overall it’s pretty nice piece of code! It’s available for free, but you can get paid version which costs 1.99$ – it delete all ads and enables extra functionality. You can download app right here!
Personally I’ve bought paid version, I love it, and use it every single day.
