Google Drive generally makes it very easy to work with files offline, especially if you use the Chrome web browser. But if you don't work with Chrome (I prefer Firefox), what can you do? Fortunately, there's always the official Google Drive Desktop Client (which is available for macOS and Windows -- Google, we need a Linux version, stat!) to help you out with that.
But why would you need offline access to files in a world that is constantly and consistently online? There are a couple of reasons. First, you could be heading out for business travel and will need to work with certain files while on the plane. Another reason (at least when using the Google Drive Desktop Client) is to get quick access to those files from a centralized location (more on this in a bit). Mostly, however, it's just about gaining access to certain files when a network connection isn't available.
One thing to consider is that you have two options for Google Drive syncing with the desktop client. Those options are:
Most users will go with the streaming option because it takes exponentially less space on a local drive. For those who'd prefer to protect their local storage (especially if you're dealing with a laptop that includes a smaller SSD), there's another way around this which involves making individual files available offline. This method does not require the use of Google Chrome, so users of Firefox, Safari, or Edge can enjoy the feature (so long as you have the Google Drive Desktop Client installed).
Let's see how it's done. Fear not, for those with less-than-ideal computer skills, the process is very easy. And part of the beauty of this is (so long as you already have the Google Drive Desktop Client installed) that there's zero configuration required. This works out of the box on both macOS and Windows. The one and only caveat to using offline access via Google Drive Desktop Client is that you cannot make .gdocs, .gsheet, or .gslides files available offline (they first must be converted to either MS Office or an open format (such as .odt, .ods, or .odp).
Let me show you how it works.
To make this work, you'll need a Google Drive account and the Google Desktop Client installed on either macOS or Windows. I'll be demonstrating on macOS Monterey.
Open the macOS file manager, Finder. In the left navigation, you should see a listing for your Google Drive virtual folder (Figure 1).
The Google Drive virtual folder is named Google Drive.
Image: Jack WallenNavigate to your virtual Google Drive and then locate the file you want to make available offline (those files will be found in a sub-folder called My Drive). Once you've found the file in question, right-click it and select Offline Access > Available offline (Figure 2).
Marking an .odt file to be available offline.
Image: Jack WallenNow that you've made a file available offline, how do you access it? Easy. You can either open it directly from the folder in the virtual Google Drive in Finder or you click the Google Drive Desktop Client icon in your top bar (or System Tray in Windows) and then click Offline files (Figure 3).
Accessing Google Drive offline files from the Google Drive Desktop Client drop-down menu.
Image: Jack WallenIn the resulting window (Figure 4), click Offline files to reveal all of the files you've made available offline.
All of your offline files can be accessed from here.
Image: Jack WallenAnd that's all there is to make a file available offline, using the Google Drive Desktop Client. Enjoy that newfound flexibility while working with your Google Docs on your local machine, whether you have an internet connection or not.