Display an HTML file on Google Drive?

Question

How can I preview an HTML file on Google Drive? I did a bit of research and it seems hosting HTML has been deprecated by Google in 2016. I tried to open the direct link of the HTML file but it downloads it and doesn't display it. Any workaround ? Thanks :D

Answer 1

Ironically Google, a company built on html, still has no good solutions for handling .html files on Drive: I'm web developer! If you create a .html file within any text editor (Mac, Linux or MS) and save it with a .html extension (e.g. test.html), that file is now a Browser file, not a text or Doc file. G-Drive was created to be a cloud replacement for MS Office suite of products (Word, Excel, and so forth). It will even save a .txt (or text) file, and display it back as such.

However, a file dropped in Drive (via the Chrome browser) with a .html extension; if you simply click on it, it will be opened by/in Docs, and displayed therein as a web page (and poorly too, since it cannot connect to the styling of the .css file). If you right-click on it, and select "display", it will give a similar display only without opening it in Docs. If you right-click and select "download" it will download in .doc format. Yes, worthless! I copy the html, code and all from the file on my PC, and paste it into a blank Doc file, which is OK for a backup of that file, plus it will spell-check and all, but it is not an easy way to cloud save or sync. And, it cannot open the browser to view it, because it is internal to (or already inside of) the browser. The only accurate way to preview a .html file, is for the file to be external to a browser (any web browser), and then opened inside or with that browser.

To repeat: If you simply click on it, it will be opened by/in Docs, and displayed therein as a web page (and poorly too, since it cannot connect to the styling of the .css file). If you right-click on it, and select "display", it will give a similar display only without opening it in Docs.