Convert Drive Files to PDF and Save to a Drive Folder
Saving converted PDFs back to a Drive folder keeps your output organized alongside the source files. The Docs to PDF extension downloads PDFs locally by default, but a Google Apps Script integration can save them directly to a specified Drive folder without touching your local machine.
Saving to Drive via Apps Script
Apps Script can export a Google Doc to PDF and save the result directly to a target Drive folder using DriveApp.createFile(). This keeps everything in Drive: source documents in one folder, exported PDFs in another. No local download is required.
Uploading extension-downloaded PDFs to Drive
If you use the Chrome extension, PDFs land locally first. Drag them into the target Drive folder directly from the Chrome downloads bar. Chrome allows you to drag files from the bottom download shelf into an open Drive window, which uploads them immediately.
Organizing Drive folders for source and output
A clean approach is to keep source documents in a folder named by type or project, and save PDFs to a parallel folder with the same name plus '-PDFs'. This makes it easy to find the PDF version of any document.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can the Chrome extension save PDFs directly to Google Drive?
Not directly. The extension downloads to your local machine. Use Apps Script for a Drive-to-Drive workflow.
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