Gmail is really famous among users of all the email clients available on the web and that is not because it has a cool interface rather it is famous for its reliability and huge space which includes storage space of near about 7000 megabytes and increasing. Google doesn’t stop here and recently Google announced that users can now buy more online storage for Google services just by paying a little amount. So why not use this online storage space and use it externally probably as a network drive or one of your own computer hard drives.
Use Google Storage Space as Google Drive
I am going to show different methods by which your can use your Gmail account space as your external hard drive that too free. You will be able to download (or should I say copy) attachments from your Gmail account to your computer just as you would do from a drive on your computer. You can also use this space to upload content direct from your computer and save it online in your Gmail account.
1. GMAIL DRIVE
GMail Drive is a Shell Namespace Extension that creates a virtual filesystem around your Google Mail account, allowing you to use Gmail as a storage medium.
GMail Drive creates a virtual filesystem on top of your Google Gmail account and enables you to save and retrieve files stored on your Gmail account directly from inside Windows Explorer. GMail Drive literally adds a new drive to your computer under the My Computer folder, where you can create new folders, copy and drag’n'drop files to.
With GMail Drive you can easily copy files to your Google Mail Account and retrieve them again.
When you create a new file using GMail Drive, it generates an e-mail and posts it to your account. The e-mail appears in your normal Inbox folder, and the file is attached as an e-mail attachment. GMail Drive periodically checks your mail account (using the Gmail search function) to see if new files have arrived and to rebuild the directory structures. But basically GMail Drive acts as any other hard-drive installed on your computer.
You can copy files to and from the GMail Drive folder simply by using drag’n'drop like you’re used to with the normal Explorer folders.
When you create a new file using GMail Drive, it generates an e-mail and posts it to your account. The e-mail appears in your normal Inbox folder, and the file is attached as an e-mail attachment. GMail Drive periodically checks your mail account (using the Gmail search function) to see if new files have arrived and to rebuild the directory structures. But basically GMail Drive acts as any other hard-drive installed on your computer.
You can copy files to and from the GMail Drive folder simply by using drag’n'drop like you’re used to with the normal Explorer folders.
Because the Gmail files will clutter up your Inbox folder, you may wish to create a filter in Gmail to automatically move the files (prefixed with the GMAILFS letters in the subject) to your archived mail folder.
Please note that GMail Drive is still an experimental tool. There’s still a number of limitations of the file-system (such as total filename size must be less than 65 characters). Since the tool hooks up with the free Gmail Service provided by Google, changes in the Gmail system may break the tool’s ability to function. I cannot guarantee that files stored in this manner will be accessible in the future.
2. PHP GMAIL DRIVE (PGD)
Php Gmail Drive is a new type of file sharing utility. Unlike typical file servers (say xDrive) it uses Gmail as backend file server. You can enjoy it simply by hosting a small PHP script in your web site without any database. Gmail file space is more than 2GB, so you can imagine you already have such a big space on internet. However, you will require a Gmail account (If you don’t have any Gmail address, go GmailSwap or ask your friends.). PGD automatically connects Gmail server and fetches list of all attached files and generate downloadable links in a tree like view. If you are looking for a file server to upload your music or notes without any hassle, PGD is ideal for you. Technically speaking PGD is wrapper of Gmailer . Thought there is no need to know hecks of PHP or Gmailer. Just you have to check that your PHP hosting service provider has curl extension of PHP to handle HTTP/HTTPS traffic.
Features
Features
* Successfully connects to Gmail and only grabs list of Attachments in Gmail messages.
* List of attachments are displayed with inbuilt Javascript engine. You can customize output to any other formats.
* 100% compliant to GMAILFS. So you can upload with Windows Gmail Shell extension or Linux GmailFS utilities..
* Supports Multiple Gmail accounts in the same script .
* Supports all browsers.
* Total size is less than 100 KB.
* List of attachments are displayed with inbuilt Javascript engine. You can customize output to any other formats.
* 100% compliant to GMAILFS. So you can upload with Windows Gmail Shell extension or Linux GmailFS utilities..
* Supports Multiple Gmail accounts in the same script .
* Supports all browsers.
* Total size is less than 100 KB.