Organizing Files in Google Drive Is Now Easier

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Google is on a mission to make it easier to organize your cloud, which is good news to anyone who’s ever tried juggling files in Drive’s web interface. Hot on the heels of Google’s revamp of Drive’s file search, Google has announced interface tweaks across the web version of Google Drive. And as we pointed out in our recent review of Drive, it could use some improvements.

First, Google revamped the “Add to Drive” and “Move to” buttons along web toolbar. No longer will Drive users need to weed through context menus to add a shared or searched file into their drive. The Add to My Drive button now makes more sense, has been moved up front, and offers a single-click experience to adding shared or searched files into your Drive.

Move Dialogue

The “Move to” button now replaces the “Add to Drive” button once a file is saved on Drive, which is another quick way to see if a file is on your Drive or not. The file movement dialogue is also revamped. It’ll now only take a couple of clicks to move files from folder to folder within your Drive.

New Previews

Both new buttons are prominently featured within file previews as well. You can now flip from preview to preview along photo and document collections saved with you or found with the built-in Google search, saving and moving files in a few clicks.

The new preview can be annoyingly inconsistent, though. If you save a file, the “Move to” button will appear. But if you come back to its preview later, the “Move to” button will not be displayed up front. Instead, it can be found within the vertical ellipses menu (…), where it was before the update.

Drag and Drop

Drag and drop is the easiest and most natural file movement for most users these days, and it’s great to see that Google has bought it to the Drive web UI. Should moving files in a few clicks be too much work, just hold down one click and drag it to the folder you want. Thankfully, this actions works consistently throughout all Drive interfaces.

While Drive users will welcome these additions, there’s still plenty of room to grow. Already, the Google blog comments are filled with requests for another long-awaited feature, tag and label support. This latest batch of Drive improvements certainly isn’t Earth-shattering, but they do go a long way towards making Drive more accessible.

Mike Lohnash

Mike Lohnash

Mike has nurtured a passion for all things tech for over ten years as a hobbyist, retailer, tech supporter, and spreadsheet jockey. He’s been an optimistic evangelist for the power of the cloud since the days of server-aided file sharing. In his spare time he loves reading and writing about faraway lands, playing games within them, and has a slightly unhealthy obsession for Star Wars.

Mike Lohnash

@wondering_bard

Mike Lohnash

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