FAQ: Google Drive - Why Did My File Not Save Automagically?

One of the things myself and other trainers always point out during initial Google Drive training is that the files you edit in Drive save your changes “automagically.” (In fact, there isn’t even a save button to be found.) 

However, sometimes when we let participants loose after the training, the “automagic” statement can backfire. 

I learned this after a quick summer intro to Google Drive evolved into a year of emails asking, “WHY AREN’T MY GOOGLE DRIVE FILES SAVING AUTOMAGICALLY?!?”

Ah. Embarrassing.

I’ve learned to be more careful in my intros and do a full skit to address this misunderstanding up-front in training since then.

Here’s the deal - yes, when you edit things in Google Drive itself, like any file that starts with the word “Google,” like Docs, Sheets, Slides, Sites, and Drawings, they save automagically whenever you make changes and are connected to the Internet. (Or if you have offline editing enabled.) 

BUT for everything else, it gets a bit trickier, because you can drop nearly any file type into Google Drive but you can’t edit them all in Drive. If you have to open something in another program to edit it, generally your changes do not automatically get saved to Drive. You would have to re-upload the file to Drive to have your updates saved there too. Luckily, if your files have the same name, Google will usually replace the old version with the new one automatically.

Some examples of files that you’d need to re-upload include:

• Smart Notebook files

• PDF files

• Video files

• Audio files

• Microsoft Publisher files

• Photoshop files

There are exceptions and workarounds, of course:

• Some files can be opened with Drive apps and changes can be saved back to Drive automatically. For example, you might edit a picture with the Pixlr Editor app in Drive and then have your modified file save back to Drive. 
  

• Microsoft Office files with Google equivalents (Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and Powerpoint presentations) can be opened and edited in Google Drive itself now. 
  

• If you work with lots of non-Google files but want an easy way to sync all your changes with Drive, there is Drive for Desktop. (https://www.google.com/drive/download/) This little program puts a folder on your computer, just like how you have a Downloads folder and My Documents folder, and it lets you work with your Drive files and save things there easily. For example, if I were to drop a Publisher file into my Drive for Desktop folder, then open it, make a change, and save it, then my changes will sync because it is in that special Drive folder on my computer.