When you are signed in, you can sync My Documents to your own Google Drive. Every document becomes a .livedoc file in a LiveDoc folder, arranged in the same folders you use here, with a picture of the document as its thumbnail.
The copy in Drive is a mirror. Your documents still live in LiveDoc, so sharing, realtime editing and history work exactly as before.
Connecting
Open Settings, then Account, and find Google Drive under Cloud Sync. Choose Connect. Google asks you to let LiveDoc create files in your Drive and appear in its Open with menu.
LiveDoc only sees files it created, or a file you open with it. Google gives it no view of the rest of your Drive: not your other files, not folders you make in Drive, not copies you make there.
The first time, LiveDoc copies every document into Drive, oldest first, into a folder called LiveDoc, with the progress in Cloud Sync. If you close the tab part way, it carries on next time. You may rename or move that folder in Drive; LiveDoc keeps using it. (On a self-hosted LiveDoc the folder is called LiveDoc (self-hosted), so it never clashes with this one.)
Seeing how it is doing
Open Settings, then Account, and find the Cloud Sync section. The Google Drive row says when it last synced (for example Last synced 3 mins ago), or that it is syncing or copying, and checks again as you open it. Under the row, it says which Drive folder your documents are synced to. When something needs you, the status turns amber and a second line says what happened, with the button to fix it where there is one: Reconnect, Resume or Show folder. In the Explorer, each document also carries a small mark saying whether it is synced or waiting to sync.
To look at your documents in Google Drive, click the folder name under the row: the LiveDoc folder opens in Google Drive in a new tab.
What stays in sync
Syncing is automatic: there is nothing to press. It runs while a LiveDoc tab is open and in view, and catches up when you come back; nothing happens while nobody is looking. It checks for changes every 2 minutes while LiveDoc is open, and again when you return to the tab, and copies your edits a minute after you stop, at most once every 5 minutes per document, so a long editing session writes to Drive a few times rather than on every keystroke. Leaving the document or switching away from the tab copies your edits straight away.
| Here in LiveDoc | In Google Drive |
|---|---|
| Create, edit or rename a document | The file is created, updated or renamed |
| Move a document to another folder | The file moves |
| Delete a document | The file moves to Drive's bin |
| Restore a document from the Trash | The file comes back from the bin |
| Delete a document for good | The file is deleted |
| Move a document into a team | The file moves to Drive's bin |
| Create, rename or move a folder | The Drive folder follows |
| Delete a folder | The Drive folder moves to the bin |
It works the other way too: rename a file in Drive, move it to another folder in the LiveDoc tree, or move it to the bin, and the document follows here. Restoring it from Drive's bin restores the document, and emptying the bin deletes it for good from your Trash. Folders LiveDoc made follow the same way: rename or move one in Drive and it follows here, and moving one to the bin sends its documents to the Trash.
Edits to a file's contents made outside LiveDoc are not taken in: LiveDoc writes its copy again the next time it syncs.
Copies made in Drive
Copies you make in Drive are not picked up automatically. A Make a copy in Drive is a file LiveDoc did not create, so Google keeps it hidden from LiveDoc. To bring one in, right-click it and choose Open with, then LiveDoc: you are offered Import as new document, and your original stays as it is. Or use Duplicate inside LiveDoc.
Folders LiveDoc cannot see
A folder you make in Google Drive itself is invisible to LiveDoc until you show it one. If you move a document's file into such a folder, the document moves to the root of My Documents here and Cloud Sync says so. Choose Show folder (where the deployment offers it), pick the folder, and LiveDoc makes a matching folder and moves the document into it. From then on that folder syncs both ways.
Folders you create in LiveDoc always appear in Drive, so building your tree here needs no extra step.
When Cloud Sync needs attention
- Can't reach Google Drive. Your connection or Google is unavailable. LiveDoc tries again by itself, and at once when you return to the tab.
- Google Drive needs reconnecting. Google stopped accepting LiveDoc's access: you removed it from your Google account, changed your password, or Google expired it. Syncing pauses and nothing is deleted, here or in Drive. Choose Reconnect (in Cloud Sync, or on the banner that appears in the corner) and sync carries on where it stopped.
- Syncing paused in this browser. Some setups keep Drive access only for a while in the browser. Choose Resume to carry on.
Opening a document from Drive
Right-click a .livedoc file in Google Drive and choose Open with, then LiveDoc. Your own document opens straight away. If someone shared the file with you in Drive, or it came from another LiveDoc, you are offered Import a copy, which makes a new document of your own from it. A copy you made in Drive of one of your own documents offers Import as new document instead: a new document from the copy's contents, which that copy then keeps in sync.
Disconnecting
Choose Disconnect in the Cloud Sync section of Settings, Account. LiveDoc stops updating Drive and forgets its access; your files stay in Drive. Connect again later and LiveDoc picks up the same folder rather than making a second one. You can also remove LiveDoc from your Google account's settings: Cloud Sync then offers Reconnect, and nothing is deleted.
Cloud Sync covers My Documents. Team libraries, documents shared with you and documents kept only in this browser are not synced.
Was this article helpful?