How to create a notebook in Google Colab

What is a Google Colab?

Google Colab/Colaboratory is a free, cloud-based environment similar to Jupyter’s network environment.

Why Google Colab?

Let’s suppose that you want to create a Machine Learning model, but your PC or laptop can’t take the workload due to insufficient memory, etc. This is where the actual use of ‘Google Colab’ comes into play. Google Colab is an online platform so you don’t need to install any separate package for it. Any work you have in Google Colab is directly saved into your drive.

How to use Google Colab

To start using Google Colab, you first have to log in to your Google account. Then click here to go to Google Colab’s home page.

The home screen of Google Colab will look like:

To open a new Python notebook, click ‘new notebook’ on the bottom right corner.

The opened notebook will look like:

A notebook named untitled0.iypnb is then created and automatically saved to your google drive.

Once it’s created, change the runtime by selecting changing runtime from runtime dropbox. Select Python 2 or 3 from the ‘runtime type’ dropdown menu.

Now your notebook is ready to use!