Chapter 6 Where Are Files Stored?
Chromebooks operate on the basic idea that you will store everything in the cloud. And, this set of courses is designed with this principle in mind. So most files will be stored online and used through your web browser. There is not a lot of room to store files on most Chromebooks, so we will want to store all of your documents, presentations, spreadsheets, and data on Google Drive or Dropbox.
There is local storage on your Chromebook where you can place files. For example, we saw that when you take a screenshot with your Chromebook the file is saved onto your Chromebook directly, not onto the cloud. This can be particularly useful when people send you a file in an email and you want to eventually store it online. You might need to download it first to upload it again to one of the online file storage systems.
6.0.1 Where is the local storage?
Files stored on your Chromebook can be found using the Files App. You can find them by first clicking on the Launcher circle at the bottom left-hand corner of your screen. To see all of the apps available on your Chromebook you will expand the selection from your Launcher by clicking on the ‘^’ (up arrow) symbol on your screen.
Launcher Screen
You can then find the Files App which looks like a blue circle with a white file folder on it. As we discussed in a previous section you can pin this app to your Shelf by clicking with two finders, then moving the cursor over Pin to Shelf and letting go. It is important to pin this app to your shelf since it will be one of the apps you use most regularly.
Pin the Files App to your Shelf.
If you click on the Files App you will see all of the files you have downloaded from the Internet, any screenshots you may have taken, and any other files you have stored locally on your computer.
The Files App shows you all of your files.
These files are all stored in a folder called “Downloads” if you click on the Downloads button you will only see the files that are actually stored on your Chromebook. These files will be available whether you are connected to the Internet or not.
The Downloads folder shows you all of the files on your Chromebook.
One challenge is that most Chromebooks don’t have much space on them to store data and files. You can check how much space is left on your Chromebook by clicking the three dots on the upper right hand side of the Files app.
The Files options lets you see how much storage you have left.
Despite the limitation on local storage you can also store some of your files and data on the cloud. We will talk about different options for this depending on whether you are storing code, data, or other files later. But in general, you have access to all of your files stored on the “cloud” here as well. For example, everything in Google Drive is also available from the Files App. These files aren’t saved to your computer, they are saved on the Internet, so you will need an Internet connection to be able to access them. To see these files click on “Google Drive” on the left hand side of the Files App.
Google Drive files can be accessed from the Files App
If you want to free up space on your Chromebook, one thing that you can do is transfer some of your files from your Downloads folder to your Google Drive. You can do that by clicking on a file in your Downloads folder, holding down, and dragging it to Google Drive. This will upload the file to the cloud.
You can drag files from Download to Google Drive to upload them.
Then if you delete it from your Downloads folder, it will only be stored on the web and will free up space on your Chromebook. To delete a file you can click with two fingers on the file. This will bring up options for different things you can do with the file. If you move your cursor down to delete and let go, you will be asked if you want to delete the file. If you say yes, the file will be permanently deleted from your Chromebook.
Click with two fingers on a file and then move the cursor over delete to rename the file.
You might also find that the names of files aren’t easy to follow. In a later course we will cover file naming for data science. But for now, it is useful to know how to change the name of a file. You start by again clicking with two fingers on the file. Then you can drag the cursor over “Rename” and let go.
Click with two fingers on a file and then move the cursor over delete to delete the file.
This will place your cursor on the file name which will now be editable. If you type in the new name and hit return the file will be renamed.
Type in the new name and hit return, but don’t change the extension.
Usually it is a good idea to leave the file extension the same even if you rename a file. The extension is all of the characters after the period that tells your computer what type of file it is - a code file, a data file, a text file, or something else. For example if your file is named “file.png” then the extension is “.png”. So you might change the file name to something like “new_file.png” but you would want to leave the “.png” at the end.