# How do I upload and open my first Drive file?

Company: Socra — Multiply Your Judgment
Canonical URL: https://support.socra.com/articles/art_01m46ekyz81zgfxj3pjgstde69-first-file

You need a Socra Account identity and writer access to the destination Drive. Each file can be at most 16 MiB. Reader access lets you browse and download files but does not let you upload them.

With the Drive CLI installed and the intended Account identity active, list the Drives you can access:

```sh
socra drive list
```

If you need a new Drive, create one with `socra drive create "My files"`. You become its owner. If an existing Drive should be shared with you, ask its owner to check your grant instead. If the list has `has_more: true`, continue with `--after LAST_ID`, using its final returned ID.

Use the selected Drive's ID in place of `DRIVE_ID`. To create a folder and upload an existing local file named `notes.txt`:

```sh
socra drive mkdir DRIVE_ID /Notes
socra drive upload DRIVE_ID ./notes.txt /Notes/notes.txt
socra drive ls DRIVE_ID /Notes
```

The parent folder must exist before the upload. If `/Notes` already exists, skip its creation. A live entry with the same name blocks creation; choose another name or update the existing file's content as a new version.

Download the saved file to a new local path and open it with an appropriate application:

```sh
socra drive download DRIVE_ID /Notes/notes.txt ./downloaded-notes.txt
```

The CLI checks the downloaded content's checksum and refuses to overwrite an existing local file. Use a different output path if that file already exists. For the browser steps, see [your first Drive file](https://workspace.socra.com/docs/drive/get-started).

## Article details

- Collection: [Drive](https://support.socra.com/collections/col_01m3xcqhdaqyhcsd01zjxwda57-drive)
- Canonical: https://support.socra.com/articles/art_01m46ekyz81zgfxj3pjgstde69-first-file