What you need to know

• Google has started rolling out colorful new gradient icons for Gmail, Drive, Docs, Calendar, and more.
• The redesigned Workspace icons drop Google's strict four-color style for a softer gradient look.
• New icons are already visible in Google's web app launcher, though apps still show older versions for now.

Just ahead of Google I/O 2026, Google has started rolling out redesigned gradient icons for its Workspace apps, including Gmail, Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Calendar, Tasks, and more.

Last month, a leak suggested that Google was preparing a major visual refresh for its Workspace icons, nearly six years after the last redesign. The leak claimed that apps like Gmail, Drive, Calendar, Sheets, and Slides would all receive updated icons with a much stronger focus on gradients and blended colors.

The leak also suggested that Google was moving away from its stricter color separation across icons, and those refreshed icons are now finally starting to appear for users.

Now, if you open Google's website and head into the quick app launcher in the top-right corner, you'll start seeing the new Workspace icons there. Interestingly, the icons haven't fully rolled out across the apps themselves yet. For example, Gmail and Drive still show the older icons inside the apps, but the new ones are now visible from Google's main homepage and launcher menu.

And just like the leak suggested, these icons are much more colorful and gradient-heavy than before. The Google Drive icon now mainly focuses on green, yellow, and blue, dropping the small red corner detail from the older design. Similarly, the Docs, Slides, and Sheets icons now have a much softer gradient appearance instead of the flatter look from before.

The Google Calendar icon is also shifting back toward a more blue-focused design. Gmail still keeps the familiar envelope-shaped 'M' logo, but now uses gradients instead of solid colors.

The Google Meet icon appears to have shifted to a much more yellow-heavy gradient style. Meanwhile, Keep and Tasks also look noticeably different, with Google simplifying and softening their overall appearance.

Since these icons have already started appearing on Google's homepage, we expect a broader rollout across the Workspace apps themselves either during Google I/O week or shortly after.

Android Central's Take

I really like the direction Google is heading with these new icons. The Calendar icon especially looks much cleaner now, and dropping the strict four-color branding makes the whole Workspace suite feel a lot more modern. That said, I'm still not sold on the new Meet and Tasks icons.

If you've followed any Google announcements recently or used its apps over the past couple of years, you've probably noticed one thing, everything is now about AI. From Gmail and Google Drive to Docs and even Messages, Gemini has made its way into almost every Google app, whether you asked for it or not.

For me, AI still feels like a bit of a buzzword. There are only a handful of use cases on my phone that I actually find useful. If you're in the same boat and want to cut down on Google AI features across your apps, this guide will walk you through how to do exactly that.

What you should know before disabling Google AI on your phone

As important as it sounds, there is unfortunately no single switch to disable AI across your Android phone. That's partly because different manufacturers have implemented AI features in their own way, but I still feel there should at least be a universal toggle to turn off Gemini across apps.

The good news is that you can still disable Gemini across multiple Google apps, along with some Pixel-specific AI features, if you know where to look in the settings. And if you change your mind later, you can always turn these features back on just as easily.

Below, I'll walk you through how to disable Google AI features across apps like Messages, Gmail, Google Photos, and even some Pixel-exclusive tools. I've used the Pixel 10 Pro for this, but the steps should be fairly similar on most Android phones.

Google Messages

If you've opened the Messages app on your Android phone and found the Gemini button sitting above the plus icon a bit annoying, you can easily turn it off. Personally, I also think it's better to keep Gemini out of the same space where you handle your personal conversations.

1. Open the Google Messages app.

2. Tap the Profile icon on the top right.

3. Select Messages settings.

4. Scroll down and tap Gemini in Messages.

5. Disable the toggle for Show Gemini button.

Gmail

Gemini has also slowly made its way into Gmail, whether it's showing updates for your online orders, tracking flights, suggesting ways to polish your emails, or more recently introducing an AI-powered inbox. Similar to Google Messages, you'll need to go into Gmail's settings to turn these features off.

1. Open the Gmail app on your phone.

2. Tap the hamburger menu in the top left and go to Settings.

3. In Settings, select your email account and then find Google Workspace smart features.

4. Open it and disable both Smart features in Google Workspace and Smart features in other Google products.

This will disable Gemini and AI features not just in Gmail, but across Workspace apps like Google Chat, Drive, and Meet. If you disable the second toggle as well, Gemini will also be removed from services like Google Wallet and some smart features in Google Maps

Google Photos

With the past couple of updates, Google has also replaced the normal search in Google Photos with Gemini-powered feature called Ask Photos. Other than that, there are also other AI features in Google Photos such as remixes, photo to video, memories, and much more. If you don't want Google's AI creeping into your personal photos, here is how you can disable:

1. Open the Google Photos app.

2. Tap the Profile icon from the top right and then select Photos settings.

3. Tap Preferences and then Gemini features in Photos. Disable the Gemini features that you don't need. If you don't need any of them, you can just disable the topmost Use Gemini in Photos toggle.

Phone app

If you own a Google Pixel smartphone, chances are Google has added a bunch of AI features into core apps, including the Phone app. While some of these features, like Call Screen and Hold for Me, can be useful, not everyone wants them enabled all the time. If you'd rather keep things simple, you can turn them off.

1. Head over to the Phone app on your phone.

2. Tap the hamburger menu in the top left corner and go to Settings.

3. Under the Call Assist section, you'll see all the AI-powered features. Tap on any feature and disable the toggle for it.

Pixel Screenshots

If you own a Google Pixel 9 or Pixel 10 series phone, your device comes with the Pixel Screenshots app that analyzes every screenshot you take to give you contextual info later. While this can be useful in some cases, like saving details or pulling info from an image, there's also a chance you don't want all your screenshots being analyzed:

1. Open the Pixel Screenshots app on your phone.

2. Tap the gear icon in the top right corner.

3. Disable the toggle for Search your screenshots with on-device AI.

Alternatively, you can go into the app info page and disable the Pixel Screenshots app entirely if you don't plan on using it.

These are some of the ways you can get rid of Google AI across apps on your phone. If you don't want to use Gemini at all, you can simply disable the app itself, which breaks its integrations across other apps and essentially turns off AI features on your device.

I've felt for a while that while some AI features are genuinely useful, most of them still have a pretty low hit rate and aren't as practical as companies make them sound. Personally, I prefer keeping things simple, and this is how I go about it.

What you need to know

• Google is working on a major redesign for Workspace app icons like Gmail, Drive, and Calendar.
• New icons adopt a gradient style and move away from strict use of all four Google brand colors.
• Apps like Drive, Calendar, and Meet are getting noticeable visual changes with more focused color themes.
• The new icons haven't started rolling out to users yet.

Google is preparing a massive icon refresh for its Workspace apps, including Gmail, Drive, Docs, Calendar, and more.

It's only been a few months since Google updated icons for apps like Maps and Photos with gradient designs, and now it looks like Workspace apps are next. According to a report from 9to5Google, Google is working on a major overhaul of icons for apps like Gmail, Google Drive, Calendar, Sheets, Slides, and more.

The publication shared early versions of these updated icons, giving us a first look at the redesign.

From what we can see, most of the icons are moving to a gradient finish, similar to Google's newer design language. It also looks like Google is moving away from strictly using all four of its brand colors across every icon.

For example, the current Google Drive icon prominently uses green, yellow, and blue with a touch of red, but the updated version drops red entirely and focuses on the other three colors. Similarly, Google Calendar is also seeing a noticeable shift, moving back to a more blue-dominant look that feels a bit like older versions of the app.

The Gmail icon doesn't change much in terms of shape, still keeping the 'M' envelope design, but now uses gradients instead of solid colors. Another notable change is with Google Meet, which is moving towards a more yellow-heavy design while still keeping the video camera icon intact.

Overall, the new icons feel more refreshed compared to the current ones, and the gradient style clearly hints at deeper AI integration across these apps. Google hasn't started rolling them out yet, but we'll keep you updated as they begin to appear for users.

For now, let us know what you think about these new Google app icons.

Android Central's Take

I actually like the direction Google is going with these icons, especially Calendar going back to a more blue-heavy look. Some icons like Meet feel a bit odd, like Google Keep and Google Tasks, but overall the gradient refresh looks modern.

What you need to know

• For the first time, Android is offering a native, automatic safety net for your Downloads folder, finally protecting orphaned files like PDFs, invoices, and resumes.
• The February Play System update adds a built-in toggle that automatically backs up your Downloads folder to Google Drive.
• Changes made after backup won’t update automatically between your phone and Drive, and some unusual file types may not be supported yet.

Android has supported cloud backups for a long time, but the Downloads folder has always been a weak spot. Your photos go to Google Photos, and your settings are saved in Google Drive, but things like your flight itinerary PDF or a recent invoice have historically been one factory reset away from oblivion.

Now, that is changing. The February Google Play System update adds a built-in local file backup feature (via Android Authority). This lets Android users protect files in their Downloads folder. It may not seem huge, but if you have ever lost files after a reset or switching phones, it is a real improvement.

Android’s built-in backups have mostly covered two areas: multimedia like photos and videos (usually through Google Photos), and device or app data such as settings and messages. What was missing were the files you save yourself. Things like a job contract from Gmail or a PDF ticket from Chrome stayed only on your device, making them easy to lose.

No more manual uploads required

Apps like Google Drive let you upload files by hand, but there was no easy, automatic backup. Many people either had to move files to the cloud themselves or forgot to back them up at all. That is finally changing.

With the February Play System update, Android now detects files in your Downloads folder and can back them up to Google Drive. You’ll find a new toggle under Settings > Google > Backup that lets you enable it. Once enabled, documents from your Downloads folder get saved as static copies in Drive. If you change them later on your device, those changes will not update in the cloud, and edits in Drive will not sync back to your phone.

Google is starting with common document files, so some unusual file types may not be included yet. Also, this feature is rolling out slowly, so you might not see it right after updating.

Android Central's Take

For Android users, this is one of those updates you don’t know you needed… until you do. Backing up downloads has been a big missing piece, especially since we use our phones for everything from work files to travel documents. This update does not change everything about Android backups, but it fixes a common problem.

This is a practical improvement for everyday users. Until now, backup tools have often ignored downloaded files or forced you to upload them yourself. With this new feature, you are less likely to lose important files like last month’s resume or work PDFs.

Google is constantly churning out experimental AI features in Google Labs, including CC, an AI productivity agent announced last month. It's perhaps the most intriguing entry for Google Workspace users into the world of what is known as agentic artificial intelligence. This emerging technology uses AI agents that can take actions independently on your behalf to save you time and effort.

Google's CC optionally integrates with Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, and the web to give you curated daily briefings. This early Google Labs experiment opened up to personal Google accounts in the U.S. and Canada in December, and users can sign up for the waitlist here. Availability is opening for Google AI subscribers first, starting with users on the Ultra plan.

While some gained access to CC within hours of joining the waitlist, I only received access over the weekend on a personal Google AI Pro account. It's unclear how many people Google is letting try CC at a time, but if you're an AI Pro subscriber like me who joined the waitlist, check for an introductory email from CC. Now that I've been using CC for a few days, it's clear that it might be the one AI tool to keep me on track.

The signup process for the experiment takes two steps: enabling Smart Settings in your Google Workspace settings and joining the waitlist on the Google Labs site. Once you gain access, you'll be able to chat with CC over email and receive daily reports. Here's how the experimental productivity agent could help streamline your workflows.

What it's like to have CC manage your inbox

Your introduction to CC will likely start with the productivity agent proving how well it knows your inbox. In my case, CC started with the following standard welcome message:

Then, it veered into the realm of personal by saying "I'm already thinking about how you're managing your journalism career..." CC's immediate knowledge of me and the work I do with my Google account was certainly jarring yet impressive. But when you hand over your Gmail, Calendar, and Drive data to an AI agent, that's probably to be expected.

CC is both an autonomous helper and an on-demand chatbot. Users get a daily briefing that identifies action items, upcoming events, important emails and deals, and more. It's called "Your Day Ahead," and it can be customized to your liking by simply replying to the email with instructions. Alternatively, you can contact CC anytime by emailing the address for the agent, which is available in the following format: [your Google username]+cc@gmail.com.

It sounds like a better alternative to Gemini in Workspace for those that use their email as a do-it-all productivity tool. If you're the kind of person that sends emails to themselves instead of using a note-taking app, or one that uses Gmail as a cloud storage solution, CC will come in handy. It can remember information, summarize it, and search it.

CC has already made it impossible for me to forget the important details by resurfacing them on a daily basis. That includes events and deadlines you might have long forgotten. In its opening act, CC reminded me of a meeting I had set weeks ago, and it became an immediate lifesaver.

The agent includes hotlinks to source material and suggested actions in an effort to predict your next move. Depending on what it summarizes, CC might suggest you reply to a colleague, view a link, or add an event to your Google Calendar. Notably, these links don't seem to work reliably on mobile, and Google notes this is a known issue in the footers of emails from CC.

You can rate an email from CC with a simple thumbs up or down, or reply to it to ask a question, clarify something, or give detailed feedback for next time.

I currently have hundreds of thousands of unread emails across my various email accounts. No, I'm not proud of it. If we're being honest, I probably won't do anything about it anytime soon. That makes CC the perfect virtual personal assistant for me. It surfaces the important details and makes it easy to ignore the promotions and spam, allowing me to take command of my inbox for the first time.

What you need to know

• Google is offering a limited-time 50% discount on Google One annual plans, including storage-only and AI Pro tiers.
• The 100GB and 2TB storage plans are now cheaper, but they do not include access to Google's full AI feature set.
• Google AI Pro is also discounted, bundling 2TB storage with higher Gemini limits and additional AI tools.

Google is currently running a limited-time promotion on Google One, offering a flat 50% discount on its annual storage and AI Pro plans. If you have been thinking about upgrading your Google storage or trying out the company's AI features, this could be a good time to do it.

Google shared details of the offer in a post on X, highlighting the discount on its top-tier Google AI Pro plan. While the post focuses on the premium tier, the company is also offering the same 50% discount on its more basic Google One plans, including the entry-level 100GB option.

Under this promotion, the basic 100GB Google One plan is discounted to $10 for the entire year, down from its usual $20 price. The 2TB storage-only plan is also available at half price, dropping to $50 annually instead of the regular $100.

These plans are ideal if you primarily want extra cloud storage for services like Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos, but they do not include access to Google's full suite of AI features.

Google One is cheaper right now, but only for some

If you are looking for storage plus AI tools, Google is also discounting its Google AI Pro plan by 50%. The annual price of this tier is now $100, down from $200. Along with 2TB of shared storage across Google services, the AI Pro plan unlocks a more complete set of AI features.

Subscribers to Google AI Pro get higher usage limits for Gemini 3 Pro, access to the latest Veo models, and additional AI tools such as Antigravity and Gemini CLI. The plan also includes access to Google's new Google Home Premium Standard plan at no extra cost.

Until now, free access to Google One benefits was mostly limited to Pixel phone owners and students. If you don't fall into either category and have been curious about Google One or Google's AI offerings, this promotion makes it significantly easier to try them out without paying full price.

It is worth noting that this deal is only available to new users. However, there is a workaround if you really want to take advantage of the discount.

You can sign up using a new Google account and then add your existing email addresses to the Google One family plan. Since family sharing is supported on these plans, you can still access the storage and AI features at half the usual cost.

You can claim the new Google One promotions using this link. It is worth noting that these offers are typically time-sensitive and will likely be available only until around New Year's Eve.

What you need to know

• Google Drive finally dumps its outdated file viewer, replacing it with a cleaner, faster, and far more useful interface.
• PDF viewing gets a massive upgrade with a sidebar table of contents and page thumbnails.
• The new video transcript search lets you jump straight to any spoken keyword.

For a long time, opening a file in Google Drive felt outdated, especially when you were just trying to read a PDF in your browser. Now, that old experience is finally gone.

Google Drive on the web is getting rid of its old, clunky viewer. What used to be a basic, sometimes frustrating way to open PDFs, images, and videos is being replaced with a cleaner, more useful workspace.

This update fixes common complaints about how you move around, organize, and use the Drive viewer. If you spend a lot of time jumping between documents or reviewing media straight from your browser, you’ll feel the difference immediately.

PDFs in Drive finally make sense

The biggest improvement is for PDFs, which have always been a weak spot in Drive. The new viewer now shows a table of contents on the left if the file has one, along with thumbnail previews for every page. You no longer have to scroll endlessly through a hundred-page document hoping to land on the right paragraph.

This new interface pairs nicely with Drive’s Gemini-powered audio summaries. You can generate and listen to a quick overview right from the side panel, or jump into the “Audio overviews” folder to replay anything you’ve saved.

Google didn’t stop at PDFs, though. Video files get a surprisingly powerful upgrade with a transcript search tool built right into the viewer. Instead of scrubbing back and forth trying to find the exact moment someone mentions a keyword, you can type the word directly into the transcript and jump straight to that point in the video.

This feature saves you time right away, especially if you work with long recordings or meeting videos.

All of this sits atop a refreshed interface that looks cleaner and behaves more predictably. The toolbar has been redesigned, the file menu is more intuitive, and the overall layout feels less cramped.

The rollout is already underway for users on Google’s Rapid Release track, while Scheduled Release domains will begin seeing the new viewer starting December 11, 2025. The update is available for both personal and Workspace users.

What you need to know

• A new button in the Google Drive toolbar lets you generate a summary and play it instantly through the Gemini side panel or access it later from a new “Audio overviews” folder.
• The feature creates quick, two-to-ten-minute summaries of key points of your file, eliminating the need to read long documents.
• It is currently English-only and is rolling out to specific paid Workspace tiers.

Google Drive is rolling out a nifty feature that handles your lengthy PDFs and spits out a brief, conversational summary you can listen to.

The update, which is known as audio overviews across Google’s services where it’s already available, relies on Gemini to generate spoken summaries of long documents, making it much easier to catch up on your PDF's contents without staring at your screen.

When you open a PDF in Google Drive on the web, you’ll now see a new “Audio Overview” button in the toolbar. Tap it, and Drive will process the file and summarize its key points.

You can immediately listen to the audio summary once it's finished by tapping the play button in the Gemini side panel. Alternatively, you can access the audio file through a new “Audio overviews” folder in your Drive.

Additionally, you’ll receive an email notification to start listening to the audio summary. As per Google's blog post, most summaries range from two to 10 minutes, depending on the length and complexity of the PDF.

Perfect for multitasking or accessibility

The feature comes in handy during moments when reading isn’t convenient. More importantly, it’s a big win for accessibility, making it easier for users who prefer listening or find it hard to read long documents on a screen.

For now, audio overviews are available only in English and only on the web version of Drive, where it’s enabled by default. It’s rolling out to select Google Workspace and Google One tiers, including Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Google One AI Premium, AI Ultra, and AI Ultra for Business.

As is usually the case, the rollout doesn't happen all at once as it depends on your Workspace domain type. If you’re on a Rapid Release domain, you’re first in line to get access. For Scheduled Release domains, the feature will start appearing from November 12, 2025, and may take up to 15 days to reach everyone.

It’s worth noting that audio overviews are not meant to replace a thorough read, but they offer a practical way to get the main ideas from a report or research paper in minutes. If you have a Drive full of untouched PDFs, this update might finally make catching up less painful.

What you need to know

• Google Drive is reportedly receiving a Workspace Labs test that brings a slightly redesigned viewfinder, but a woefully upgraded AI scanner.
• The AI scanner now runs autonomously without user input, identifying, scanning, and adding files to your Drive storage.
• Users can reportedly "stop" or pause this automatic feature when in Drive's AI scanner, though the AI will identify documents with colored outlines.

Google Drive is reportedly testing a newer, faster scanner for the app for digitizing those lengthy documents without much trouble.

As reported by 9to5Google, a recently spotted Google Workspace Labs test brought in a test for an upgraded document scanner. There's a major difference being noted in this updated AI scanner: Google Drive essentially now runs in automatic mode the entire time, foregoing the user's manual input entirely. The test showed that users can continuously place new documents before the scanner for automatic Drive storage additions, all powered autonomously by its AI software.

However, users can "stop" or pause this automatic function from taking place, though it seems the scanner will still identify that there's a document in front of it with a colored outline.

Around the centered stop button, Google Drive displays a squiggly, fun animation that circles it, and when it completes, your scan is done. Every scanned page/document is listed under your bottom row of icons, so users can easily swipe through and make sure everything is correct.

The publication noticed a slight design change in the scanner's viewfinder. Now, instead of appearing a little boxy or rectangular in the center of your display, the viewfinder fills up the entire top portion of your screen.

Material 3 Expressive is the design all apps want to wear

The publication states users may find this Labs experiment for Drive's scanner slowly throughout the week, via a new card that appears when opening the feature. What's more, the publication states this new test arrived shortly after Drive's Material 3 Expressive update, which seems to have altered its AI scanner in Labs.

Material 3 Expressive, Android's new design language, has been making its way around the entire ecosystem since earlier this year, when it hit wearables. Jump ahead to September, and the latest Pixel drop expanded on Google's new Android design to even more of its devices. M3 Expressive started rolling out for the Pixel 6 and the Pixel Tablet earlier this month, bringing upgraded customizable lock screens, call screens, and a revamp to Quick Settings.

As a whole, Material 3 Expressive is the largest redesign to ever hit Android, something the company wanted to debut to create a more colorful and (literally) expressive digital environment. While things become a little prettier, Google also wanted its Android software to be easier to use. Many UI elements have been altered to satisfy that "ease of use" mentality Google had for Android users.

What you need to know

• "Catch Me Up" uses Gemini AI to highlight recent file edits and comments in Docs, Sheets, and Slides.
• The new feature can be spotted in the "Ask Gemini" section, which offers a quick overview of important changes since the last view.
• The feature is rolling out to Google Workspace and Google One AI Premium users, starting with English language support.

Google Workspace has released a new update that brings in a new interesting feature to Google Drive, and it is dubbed "Catch me up."

On Tuesday (June 3), Google Drive gained a new "Catch me up" feature that allows users to stay up to date on their files. It is a Gemini-powered feature that can help in identifying their files for users in the Drive like — "changes since it was last viewed and provide an overview of those changes," the company explains in the accompanying blog post.

These changes can comprise file edits on Docs or relevant comments on Docs, Sheets, and Slides. The aim is to highlight changes that could seem helpful and important.

""Catch me up” provides a high-level overview of important changes across documents from your Drive, or a synopsis of the main changes and comments in a particular file since it was last opened to ensure users are always up to date. "

The feature can be spotted in the Ask Gemini section on the Google Drive homepage, sitting right alongside "Learn about Gemini in Drive" and "Summarize a folder in Drive" features. And, hitting up "Catch me up" will showcase the important changes made to your files via the Gemini pane on the right.

To elaborate, for a Google Doc, Gemini can help with changes done to the file since the last time a user opened the document. Additionally, it can also provide an overview of what has been changed.

Also, if there are any docs, which are being edited on a constant basis, there will be a "catch me up" icon indicator right next to the name of the file, which can easily open up Gemini straight into overviewing the changes.

It is a handy little feature for Google Workspace users, and it began as a gradual rollout on June 3 for Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains. It is available for all eligible Google Workspace users and those with a Google One AI premium plan. The feature is also believed to be available for the English language at this moment.

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What you need to know

• Google Drive is picking up a Gemini update today (May 28) that brings more of its intelligence to videos.
• Gemini can now quickly summarize a video's contents and list any "action items" mentioned in the video.
• Earlier this year, Google's huge Workspace Drop brought Gemini updates to several of its apps.

Google is looking to extend Gemini's intelligence in Drive with an update for those long videos.

In a Workspace blog update, starting today (May 28), Google Drive is receiving a Gemini patch that brings summarization capabilities to videos. When clicking Gemini's starry icon, its side panel will now display a text box detailing the "summarized content." Users can interact with this drop-down menu for quick bites of information without having to sit through a lengthy video.

However, summarizing a video's content isn't all Gemni is capable of in this patch.

Google highlights the AI model's ability to list "action items" from a video. Action items are direct calls for you (the viewer) to do something. Google uses the example of a planning video, which tells the user to finalize a campaign schedule and secure a location for its "spring pop-up." If Gemini detects things like this, it will list them under the "list action items" function in the side panel.

Additionally, Gemini's newfound video capabilities pave the way for specific user questions. You can ask the AI to list any video highlights and more, depending on the context of the video.

Gemini in Workspace Continues

As you might expect, this feature is rolling out for Google Workspace customers. The patch notes state users under the Standard and Plus versions of Business and Enterprise will soon see Gemini's video analyzing capabilities. Customers with Google One AI Premium, as well as the Gemini Education, Education Premium, Business, and Enterprise add-ons.

Rapid-release domains should begin noticing this today (May 28), while those on the scheduled-release track will see by Jun 16.

Gemini has been making its rounds through Google's Workspace environment for a while now, bringing quite a time-saving feature to Drive late last year. When it comes to folders in Drive, sometimes there's just too much to go through. Gemini comes into play, offering its insightful summarization function for folders, documents, and spreadsheets. Users summoning Gemini can use the "@" symbol to direct Gemini to a specific folder, i.e., "summarize the files in @AndroidCentral."

Additionally, a huge Workspace Drop occurred earlier this year, which saw Gemini spread across Google's apps like mad. Within this drop was an update for Drive that looped Gemini into the app for AI-generated transcripts for videos.

What you need to know

• More Gemini AI capabilities venture into Google Sheets and Drive.
• This includes the ability to generate insights regarding contextual trends, patterns, or correlations between variables in data.
• For Google Drive, videos uploaded can have AI-generated transcripts to make them easier to discover.
• NotebookLM and Gemini Deep Research are now available for Workspace consumers too.

Feature drops are something Google Pixel users look forward to, and the search giant seems to be pushing out more of these lately. Last week, we saw some Workspace drops for Google Sheets, Google Drive, Gemini Deep Research, and Notebook LLM (via 9to5Google).

Gemini is bringing some notable new AI capabilities to Google Sheets, which will be based on advanced multi-step code generation. These capabilities are likely to help generate deeper insights regarding contextual trends, patterns, or correlations between variables in data provided in Sheets.

Further, to provide advanced visual insights, it will also be able to generate advanced chart types, like heat maps, for example.

Here’s one of the few examples cited by the search giant in the announcement blog post:

“A small business owner managing cash flow can ask "Predict my net income for the next quarter based on historical data" to proactively identify potential shortfalls.”

Google Sheets users will also see some improvements, like pasting speeds significantly improved by up to 50% when copying between spreadsheets. Further, a 50% faster filter menu loading speed is available for larger datasets, which can include several unique values. And, getting data should be quicker as well, because existing spreadsheets are claimed to open up 30% quicker.

After announcing the automatic generation of captions for uploaded videos on Google Drive last year, Google is now introducing a video transcripts feature for videos to make them easier to discover and reference when required.

Drive users will be able to view and search transcripts for videos with captions. The transcript can be viewed right next to the video player, which will automatically highlight the spoken text in the video. It further allows users to jump to the preferred part while watching the video by clicking on the transcript.

NotebookLM, the search giant’s popular AI research assistant, is now incorporated as a core service for Workspace Business and Enterprise consumers. The Assistant looks at the users’ organization's data to generate insights and accelerate learning. For the said consumers, it includes the same enterprise-grade data protections and level of technical support as other core Workspace apps.

Similarly, Gemini Deep Research is also now available for Google Workspace customers. It helps in exploring complex topics on users’ behalf and converts its findings into a comprehensive and easy-to-read format, cutting a lot of time for people trying to piece information together.

Those comprehensive reports can further be exported to Google Docs and quickly shared with the team. Users can find the generated reports neatly organized with relevant links to dig even more. Further follow-up questions can be asked to make the report even more refined.

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What you need to know

• Google Drive now lets you watch videos instantly after uploading, ditching those annoying wait times.
• While the update is great, you still have to wait for video processing before sharing.
• The upgrade is available to Google Workspace users, individual subscribers, and personal account holders.
• Right now, it’s live for Rapid Release domains, but everyone else will get it by January 2, 2025.

Google Drive just rolled out a handy new feature that allows for instant video playback right after uploading on the web, so you can finally get rid of those frustrating wait times.

In a recent Workspace blog post, Google announced that instant video playback on the web is now live. The company didn’t dive into the technical details, but it’s clear the changes work like a charm.

Before this update, uploading videos to Google Drive meant waiting for them to go through a transcoding process. Basically, the videos had to be converted into a streaming-friendly format for Drive’s player. This step often took forever, leaving creators stuck waiting instead of diving right in.

From now on, you can start watching videos as soon as they’re done uploading to Google Drive.

Cloud storage services like Google Drive are built on a simple idea—upload files and get them back when you need them. But with the competition heating up, these services have evolved beyond the basics. Now, they come packed with nifty features like advanced sharing options.

Back in October, Google Drive rolled out an updated media player with auto-transcriptions and faster video loading. Now, with the new tweaks, the service is cutting down video loading delays even further.

Even with this improvement, it's not perfect yet. Users still have to wait for the video processing to finish before they can share their videos with others through Drive’s player.

Google has confirmed that this upgrade is available to a wide range of users, including all Google Workspace customers, individual Workspace subscribers, and personal Google account users.

Right now, the feature is available to users in the Rapid Release domains. But starting January 2, 2025, it’ll be rolled out to everyone else.

What you need to know

• Google is rolling out a new PDF viewer for the Files by Google app, as it shared in a recent update to the app's Play Store listing.
• The old PDF viewer incorporated Google Drive, but now, the new one is specific to Google Files.
• It's easier to share, star, and take actions while viewing a PDF while using the new Files by Google interface.

Files by Google is getting a minor upgrade that could improve your PDF viewing experience. The app is rolling out a new view that leverages a custom PDF viewer, rather than using the integrated one from Google Drive. This will make accessing certain options easier, such as starring a PDF or sharing it with others. Alternatively, you can still use the PDF viewer in the Google Drive app if you prefer the previous user-interface.

Google previewed the change in an update to the "What's new" section of the Files by Google app listing on the Google Play Store. "Over the next few weeks, we’re rolling out improvements to your experience with PDF files," the note reads. "Print, find content, or access markup tools whenever you open a PDF in the Files app."

9to5Google first spotted that the change was rolling out to users of version 1.5687 of the Google Files app after a server-side tweak. Android Central confirmed the new PDF viewer on its devices, but notably, one device had to be updated to Android 15 before the change took effect.

You can see the new look of the PDF viewer in Files by Google in the screenshots below.

Now, the overflow menu lets you access key options that weren't available using the previous UI. With the old version, some menu buttons were only accessible through the list view of documents in the Files by Google app. They weren't there after the PDF was opened using the external Drive viewer, but that has been rectified with the new Files by Google custom PDF viewer.

The Find and Save to Drive icons have been replaced with Star and Share on the new viewer. These can be pressed without opening the overflow menu. The new overflow menu includes more options, including Use as, Open with, Move to Trash, Move to, Copy to, Move to Safe folder, File info, Find in file, and Print.

Finally, the markup button (floating action button) has been redesigned, and some files will have a Google Lens button above it that quickly opens Circle to Search.

What you need to know

• Google highlighted the rollout of Gemini in Drive, which aims to help summarize a user's folders, documents, spreadsheets, and more.
• Users can write their query for a folder in Drive's side panel or they can navigate to a folder and hit the "summarize folder" button.
• Google recently updated Docs with additional Gemini help for crafting formatted documents while also unveiling Gemini 2.0.

Google is rolling out an update for Drive users that brings Gemini into its side panel with new tools.

The company highlighted the latest update in a Workspace post, stating Gemini can now summarize documents in Drive. Google explains that Gemini in Drive can only answer questions about your "text documents, PDFs, spreadsheets, and presentations."

More specifically, with Gemini entering Drive's side panel, Google states users can write their queries about a folder before the "@" symbol and the name of the folder; i.e., "summarize the files in @AndroidCentral."

Additionally, Google gives the example of asking about the "theme of the content" within a folder.

Writing your prompt to Gemini isn't the only avenue toward quick information as users will find a starry icon button in folders, too. Once you receive this update, navigating to a folder should display a "Summarize this folder" button beneath the navigation bar. Clicking this will automatically inform Gemini of your request and produce the side panel with its generated information.

There will also be a "suggestions" option alongside the likely ability for users to expand on what they'd like Gemini to surface via the text field.

Alternatively, users can right-click on a document in their list and click "Ask Gemini" for information that way. The side panel expands its uses by letting users drag and drop documents into it instead of the "@" mention method.

The update started rolling out on December 11 for users under rapid and scheduled release domains. Workspace customers with Gemini Business, Enterprise, Education, Education Premium, and Google One AI Premium add-ons will have access to Gemini in Drive's side panel for summarization.

Moreover, the company states users need to have "smart features and personalization" enabled before this feature is usable. Admins can turn this on by default for users if need be.

Gemini's capabilities across Workspace have consistently grown, especially through its recent update for Docs. The AI utilizes a prompt — "help me create" — which is reminiscent of its recent smart home test for Google Home. Regardless, the Google Doc version lets the AI help users create formatted documents from scratch. The AI can also easily grab files from your Drive and incorporate them into a new file for you.

Elsewhere, Gmail picked up extra Gemini help via "contextual smart replies." The update to its AI-generated replies will take into account what's been said in your current line of messages before offering a quick suggestion. Additionally, Google unveiled Gemini 2.0 this week, which prepares to usher in a new "agentic era."

What you need to know

• Google Docs added 40 new pageless templates aimed to help users "build high-quality, modern documents faster.
• The new templates cover blog posts, press releases, business proposals, and journals, as well as specialized options for business and education Workspace users.
• Google previously added similar modernized templates to Slides last month.

Google's latest addition to Workspace is a set of 40 new pageless templates for Google Docs that are available starting today. The company announced the new templates, which come with integrated Docs features, in a blog post. Google says these are "high-quality, visually modern designs" that can be useful in a variety of situations, with specialized options for enterprise and education users.

The pageless templates feature document tabs and placeholder chips, two Google Docs features that were previously available. Document tabs help organize long documents into easily-digestible and navigable sections. Meanwhile, placeholder chips aim to simplify workflows by making it easy to fill in documents with people, dates, files, events, and places.

Aside from document tabs and placeholder chips, the 40 new templates are outfitted with custom designs, fonts, and structures. Google explains that there are templates for blog posts, press releases, business proposals, and journals, as well as specialized options such as:

• A project roadmap, marketing plan, and sales emails for business users.
• An interview guide, onboarding guide, and training manual for human resource teams.
• A reading list and class notes templates for education users.

There are a few ways to add a template to a new Google Doc, starting with a new Templates building block that will appear at the top of a blank document. Alternatively, you can choose a template by navigating through File > New > From template gallery in the Google Docs toolbar.

These new templates are available to all Google Workspace users, though it may take some time for them to show up for everyone. Both rapid release and scheduled release domains are starting to see these 40 new templates starting today, but the rollout can take up to 15 days to complete.

Google says that users can expect "even more high-quality Docs template options in the coming months."

Welcome to Ask Jerry, where we talk about any and all the questions you might have about the smart things in your life. I'm Jerry, and I have spent the better part of my life working with tech. I have a background in engineering and R&D and have been covering Android and Google for the past 15 years.

I'm also really good at researching data about everything — that's a big part of our job here at Android Central — and I love to help people (another big part of our job!). If you have questions about your tech, I'd love to talk about them.

Email me at askjerryac@gmail.com, and I'll try to get things sorted out. You can remain anonymous if you like, and we promise we're not sharing anything we don't cover here.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Why are old duplicate photos in my Google Drive folders and what should I do with them?

Jeremy asks:

I just noticed that Google seems to have duplicate copies of my whole photo library, which, I'm guessing, is a waste of space. There's a whole directory in My Drive that seems to be a duplicate of old family photos I scanned years ago, sorted by year and, I guess, not really needed.

What's going on here? Does this count against my Google storage limit? Most importantly, can I delete all this?

Hi Jeremy! You've stumbled across a secret Google feature that gives you a look at what sets Google apart when it comes to online services: the unintended, multilayered problem.

On a serious note, this happens (or happened, as we'll see later) to some folks who used Google Photos in its early days but didn't affect others. The short answer to your questions: you're seeing duplicates because Google Photos stores its files in a hidden folder in your shared Google storage. Yes, it counts against your storage the same way any files you purposefully uploaded to Google Drive, and you can delete the folder(s) from Google Drive after you verify you have copies in the Google Photos app. For a discussion of the mess, read on!

Not everyone sees these old duplicate files. At some point, Google changed how Photos stores its data, but it still is part of your overall storage space provided by Google. Before this, you could see your Google Photos storage in Drive if you knew where and how to look for it, but it was intended to be hidden.

During the transition, some people had folders duplicated while the way they were stored changed. I've heard this has to do with specific metadata, how the files were added to Photos, or what device was used to upload them. These theories could be correct, or they could be 100% wrong; regardless, it happened, and when it happened, the folders became visible like any other folder in Drive.

These folders are no longer associated with Google Photos and that means they are duplicated elsewhere in a way you can't (easily) find them. It also means they are taking up space.

You have a limited amount of space associated with your Google account. You can pay to have more if you need it, or you can manage your stored and saved files so you don't reach the limit.

These duplicate folders can be safely deleted once you've double-checked to make sure the photos are also stored in the Google Photos app. Do not delete them until you have checked. Never trust anything without verifying it for yourself.

One thing you might want to look at before you delete anything is the quality of the photo being stored, especially if you used to have an original Pixel or a Pixel 2.

It used to be that if you had a Pixel phone, your photos were stored at full quality without any cost to your shared storage allotment. Other photos had their quality reduced; it was still high-quality and is likely good enough for anything other than trying to have physical prints made, but there is a difference.

There is a chance that these "duplicate" photos would be full quality and the photos in Google Photos are not. This situation happened to me when I got hit with the weird duplication bug/mess/Googleism. A bunch of photos I took with the first Pixel phone were stored in full resolution and quality in my Google Drive but the "copies" in Google Photos were not.

It's up to you to decide if you want or need these larger-sized files (I didn't), but if you don't know and don't check, you can't decide.

One last thing to note — this happened to a lot of people, and it's probably worth checking if you are one of them and don't know it. Just open your Google Drive and look through all the stuff that's stored there. If you see folders full of pictures, this is probably why.

What you need to know

• Google Drive for Desktop now supports Windows on Arm, marking a big win for the platform.
• The app’s in beta, so expect a few rough spots, but if you're used to setting it up on regular Windows, it’ll be an easy switch.
• Outlook Meet plugin is missing, which could be a letdown for heavy Outlook users.
• To use it, you need a Windows 11 PC with an Arm processor and the WebView2 runtime.

Windows on Arm just scored another win with support from Google's Drive for Desktop app.

Google recently announced a native Drive for Desktop app built for Windows on Arm devices (via Windows Central). It’s in beta right now, so expect some features to feel a bit rough around the edges.

If you’re used to setting up Google Drive on regular Windows PCs, switching to the Arm64 version for Arm-based systems should be a breeze. The app feels the same, with the main difference being what’s under the hood (a native Arm64 support).

The native Drive for Desktop on Arm offers solid features but skips the Outlook Meet plugin. This might be a bummer for Outlook power users who depend on it for scheduling and teamwork. There's no word yet on whether Google plans to add it in future updates.

Since the native Drive for Desktop on Arm is still in beta, Google recommends using it with non-essential data or keeping backups just in case.

Even with its limitations, the native Arm version of Drive for Desktop is a big step forward. It’s a smoother, more efficient way to access and manage your files on the cloud storage service compared to the web version.

The app is now the second Google app optimized for Windows on Arm, following Chrome. While Google also says the Quick Share app works on Windows on Arm, it’s important to note that it runs through emulation.

To use the native Drive for Desktop, you'll need a Windows 11 PC with an Arm processor and the Microsoft WebView2 runtime. The setup is straightforward—just download and install the app directly from Google.

With the launch of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X platform and the rise of powerful, energy-efficient laptops, app compatibility became a big issue. While most major apps have been optimized for this new architecture, Google Drive was a key holdout, leaving users to rely on emulation.

The recent beta release of the native Drive for Desktop app eases those concerns and possibly boosts the adoption of Arm64 devices.

What you need to know

• Google is discontinuing Stack: PDF Scanner later this year, with the app ceasing to function on September 23.
• The app's features, like automatic edge detection and document capture, have been integrated into Google Drive, making Stack redundant.
• Stack users can easily transfer their documents to Google Drive via an "Export all documents to Drive" option in Stack's account settings.

To streamline its document management tools, Google is discontinuing "Stack: PDF Scanner" later this year, phasing out the app known for its scanning and organization features.

In a community post, a Google spokesperson confirmed that Stack: PDF Scanner has been permanently discontinued. The app will stop functioning entirely on September 23, and its listing has already been removed from the Google Play Store. This marks the definitive end of the document scanning app.

The rationale for shuttering the app seems logical. It was developed by Google's internal Area 120 incubator, which no longer exists. Stack stood out for its user-friendly design. The app featured automatic edge detection and document capture, making scanning super easy with minimal effort. It also had a handy automated document categorization system. However, Google insists that these features are now integrated into Google Drive, making Stack unnecessary.

In November, the Drive app received a dedicated "Scan" function, as noted by 9to5Google. This new feature includes a custom viewfinder for better document alignment and more intuitive controls for a seamless scanning process.

The "Auto capture" mode automatically takes a picture when the document is optimally positioned, removing the need for manual clicks. There's also a manual capture mode if you want to do things your way.

Using machine learning, Google Drive suggests relevant titles for scanned documents. For instance, when scanning a receipt, Drive might automatically add the store location and date.

The latest change marks a significant step in consolidating document management within Drive. Users can now rely on this all-in-one platform for scanning and organizing their important documents.

This strategic move aligns with Google's broader goal of streamlining its services.

To make things easier for Stack users, Google has set up a simple way to move everything over to Drive. If you're used to using Stack, you can find an "Export all documents to Drive" option in the app's account settings. This makes it a breeze to transfer all your documents to a specific folder in Drive, so the switch is smooth and hassle-free.

What you need to know

• A dive into the Google Drive app highlighted the company's work at bringing a new document-scanning feature to users.
• It was spotted that Google could let users save their scanned documents as JPG files, creating a high-quality save of every scanned page.
• Google Drive was recently spotted working on a new category system for users that would help them re-discover the most important files.

Users working with documents and PDFs might gain a useful upgrade in quality for what they upload to Google Drive.

As spotted by Android Authority in an APK search, Google is working on a way to save scanned documents as .jpeg files alongside the usual PDF option. A few strings point toward this coming functionality in the latest version of Drive, v2.24.2. Strings like "jpeg_format_label" refer to the .jpeg save option while the "ds_jpeg_quality_summary" tag is for the quality of saved pages.

It looks like Google will let users personally set the level of quality for scanned documents, according to its code. One string refers to the JPEG default quality, which is seemingly set at 80. This will likely be shown beneath the "quality_title" highlighted in the code.

Additionally, Drive's JPEG option for scanned documents will create multiple files if the JPEG option is desired. The Google Drive app shows a string that reads "jpeg_multipage_explanation." Its description details that "saving as JPG will create multiple files."

The publication speculates that Drive will create a high-quality image of every page within that uploaded document for user convenience.

JPEG files will likely be a boon to users trying to send pages of important information, especially if a PDF file isn't accepted. For now, this is just a discovery, so we'll have to wait and see when/if Google rolls it out to users.

With better document scanning (hopefully) on the way, Google was spotted working on a better category system for Drive. The discovery in its Android app showed that users could soon gain a customizable category filter on the "Home" tab. Categories like auto, banking, expenses, home, IDS, insurance, and more were found.

Google intends to let users choose which categories mean the most and display them in a row at the top of the Home tab. A new "Manage categories" option will join this update, available in the three-dot menu of a document. Tapping it will let users assign certain tags (categories) to a document for easy discovery.

Also, in April, Google brought Drive's useful search upgrade, which launched first on iOS, to Android users. Folks can quickly search for files they've modified recently and other modifiers like "File Type" and "Owner."

What you need to know

• Google rolled out new ways to filter your search in the Google Drive app for iOS last month, and at the time, said the features would come to Android at a later date.
• Now, it appears that the search filters are starting to appear in the Google Drive app for Android after a recent update.
• The filter categories can be found right below the in-app search bar and include things like File Type, Owner, and Last Modified.

The Google Drive app for Android is getting a much-needed update to make finding the exact file you're looking for easier. Google is adding a collection of search filters to the Drive app directly under the main app search bar, just like it added to the iOS version of the app early last Month. When the company announced the change, it said Android users would eventually get search filters as well but did not elaborate further.

Now, it looks like Google is pushing the update that includes search filters in Google Drive to Android users, as Android Police spotted. It comes a bit over a month after Google brought the feature to iOS, which is something the company occasionally does despite being Android's developer.

Search filters are nothing new to Google Drive, but these ones on the Android app are smarter than usual. When searching for a file in Drive, the filtering options will move around based on the contents of your search. Essentially, Google hopes to put the needed search filter directly under the search bar right when you need it without having to make users scroll to find the one that'll help.

You can take a look at how search filters work in the Google Drive app for Android in the screenshots below, which Google shared when it first made the feature available on iOS.

The search filters include options like File Type, Owners, and Last Modified. They come in handy in several situations, like if you only want to search images or documents. You can also see only files that were modified recently via set time intervals you can choose between. You can also search only files owned by a specific person, which is neat, too.

Again, search filters are hardly a new thing, but Google is making the Drive app for Android more like the desktop versions with this change. As phones get bigger and more powerful, there's a higher chance people will try to do more work on the go with their smartphones. With features like these — and the emergence of great folding phones — that kind of usage becomes more of a possibility for everyday people.

We've spotted search filters appearing in the Google Drive app on a few of our devices. If you're not seeing the update, try updating the Drive app manually in the Google Play Store app. Google says this feature is available with all Google accounts, including personal and Workspace accounts.

What you need to know

• Google Drive now has a dark mode on the web.
• You can toggle between light and dark modes by going into Drive settings. 
• The mode doesn't extend to Docs, Sheets, and Slides. 
• Gmail and Calendar are yet to make the switch.

It only took Google several years, but the Google Drive web app now has dark mode. Google announced the change on April 16, and while it usually rolls out features in a phased manner, that isn't the case this time — dark mode is available to all Google Drive users globally.

This includes users with personal Google accounts, Google Workspace customers, and Workspace Individual subscribers. If you have a Workspace account, you don't need admin access to enable the feature — it's located in the settings, and you can easily toggle between light and dark modes.

Same goes for everyone else too. When you select the gear icon (located on the top right) and choose Settings, you'll now notice an Appearance sub-menu with three options: Light, Dark, and Device default. You can manually select light and dark modes, or if you prefer changing it at a system level, use Device default and the mode changes based on your system settings.

The sidebar has a dark grey tone, with the folder view switching to a fully black color scheme. And while Drive itself has dark mode on the web, that doesn't extend to Docs, Slides, and Sheets, so if you pull up any documents, they will default to light mode.

Google took its time to roll out the feature to Drive users — so much so that I resorted to using the Dark Reader extension to get dark mode on all of Google services. While Google Search on the web got dark mode back in 2021, several Google services are yet to make the switch, notably Gmail, YouTube, and Calendar. If you don't want to wait until Google rolls out dark mode across its suite of services, I highly recommend Dark Reader.

What you need to know

• Code inside Google's Drive app on Android shows that it's working on bringing a new "category" system to users.
• Users will be able to customize and display their important categories on Drive's "home" tab for easy discovery.
• The code also showed users that they could select which categories a stored Drive file or document should contain in its three-dot menu.

It appears that Google is working on bringing a new category system to Drive that should make it easier for users to find what they're looking for.

The feature was discovered by AssembleDeBug (TheSpAndroid), and the post states that "Categories" will appear on the Drive app's home tab (via Android Police). Users may soon find their categories as rounded icons in a row at the top of the app's welcoming page. Moreover, a three-dot menu is said to let users "Manage Categories" for customization purposes.

In the app's code, tapping this option will let users decide which categories should appear quickly at the top. 

Another finding shows that users can decide which "category" their documents and files should fall under. The app's code shows that tapping the three-dot menu on a document will soon include a second "Manage categories" option. From there, users should be able to select all categories that apply to their files.

There were twelve categories spotted in the Drive app's Android code:

• Auto
• Banking
• Expenses
• Home
• IDS
• Insurance
• Medical
• Pets
• School
• Taxes
• Travel
• Work

While the discovery was made in the Android app's code, AssembleDeBug states the feature will arrive on the web and iOS devices. Additionally, they speculate that personal and Workspace accounts should pick up categories whenever Google is finished.

While we await this new categorization method, Google recently rolled out an update to Drive that improves the playback experience of uploaded videos. The company's solution, which it calls "DASH," works to adjust the quality of your stored content depending on your network's speed. Google also detailed a refined search experience, which has only rolled out for iOS devices thus far.

New filters like File Type, Owner, and Last Modified should be available on Android, but Google has not said when.

What you need to know

• Google is introducing a new update for videos uploaded to Drive, allowing them to adapt playback quality based on network speed.
• All new videos uploaded to Drive will utilize the new feature, and existing videos are slated for an update by the end of the year.
• Google is also elevating Drive's search experience on iOS with new filters, with plans for an Android rollout later.

Google is dropping a fresh update for Drive on mobile that will automatically adjust video quality to make load times way snappier.

Although Google Drive's video player seems like a distant cousin of YouTube's, you've probably felt the struggle when trying to stream videos on the platform. It's not exactly a smooth ride—videos take ages to kick off, and buffering feels like a snail's pace.

To fix this agony, Google is introducing Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) for all fresh videos uploaded to Drive. This means your videos will adjust their playback quality based on your network speed.

With the DASH upgrade on Google Drive, we're talking way faster "join times"—that's's the time it takes from clicking the video to it actually playing. Plus, re-buffering will be minimized, whether you're on fast or regular playback.

All the new videos you toss into the cloud storage service will get the DASH treatment. And Google is planning to update all your existing videos on Drive by the end of the year.

Google is also amping up Drive's search experience on iOS, with plans to roll out the same upgrade to Android. Now, Drive has added handy filters like File Type, Owner, and Last Modified right below the search bar.

The People tab in Drive gives you access to files from your recent contacts. Meanwhile, Type and Modified make it a lot easier to sort files by type and how fresh they are.

Google says everyone with a Workspace account or a personal Google account gets to experience these new search filters. It's clear that Google is giving some love to the user experience on Google Drive with these updates.

What you need to know

• Google said that an issue affecting a "small subset" of Google Drive desktop users caused files to appear missing. 
• The company released a new Drive desktop update, version 85.0.13.0, that fixes the problem and offers steps for data recovery.
• The fix should work for most users, but files may remain missing for users who signed out of their desktop Google Drive app or modified their app's data folder. 

Google is rolling out an update to the desktop Google Drive app to fix a bug that caused some users' files to go missing. The company said that the issue affected a "small subset" of users on version 84 of the app, and has issued version 85.0.13.0 with the fix. However, users will have to take manual action to try and restore the files. 

A post in the Google Drive Help Center described the problem as affecting local files that hadn't been uploaded to the cloud yet. "This issue did not impact any file changes that had already synced and were visible on the Drive mobile app or within the Drive UI on the web," the post said. However, we previously reported that Drive users have claimed to be missing up to four years of data, so it's unclear if this fix will solve all users' concerns. 

After applying the update to your Drive for desktop app, follow the steps below to try and recover your data.

How to use Google Drive's data recovery tool

1. Make sure your Drive for desktop app is running and open.

2. Click the Drive for desktop icon in the menu bar or system tray, depending on your OS.

3. Press and hold the shift key, then click settings. 

4. Click the recover from backups button. 

5. You will then either see a recovery has started notification or a no backups found notification.

6. If the recovery is successful, you will find the recovered files on your desktop in a new Google Drive Recovery folder. You may also see a not enough disk space error, which would require you to free up space and run the recovery tool again.

What to do if the tool doesn't work

If the tool doesn't successfully recover your files, Google recommends users submit feedback through the app with the #DFD84 tag. The company instructed users not to log out of the Drive for desktop app or modify their app's data folder, so users who took either step may face issues recovering data. 

Even if the recovery tool does work for most users, it's still a reminder of why local data redundancy is valuable. The issue was first reported by a user on Nov. 22, and Google didn't have a fix ready until Tuesday, December 5. That means affected users have been missing data for multiple weeks. Depending on the importance of the missing files, this bug could have had serious consequences. 

We'll have to wait and see if this patch solves the issue for affected users. If you feel like some of your Drive files have gone missing recently, give the steps above a try and let us know if it works for you. 

What you need to know

• Google Files is gaining a machine-learning files scanning feature for photos and documents similar to Drive.
• A floating camera icon will soon roll in, and tapping will give users two options: "Manual" and "Auto Capture."
• Photos snapped in Files will be stored in the "Scanned" inside the "Documents & other" directory.

The Google Files app is gaining a neat feature that makes it easier to digitize important documents and upload them to the cloud. As detailed by Nail Sadykov on X, the file management app has gained Google Drive's recent file scanner tool (via Android Police). The feature arrives as a floating camera icon on the bottom of the UI and tapping opens your device's camera.

From there, users will be met with two options: "Manual" and "Auto Capture." The first requires users to take the appropriate photo of their image or document while the latter automatically snaps a picture once in view.

Any photos taken through Google Files are saved in a new "Scanned" tab found within the "Documents & other" directory.

Users will also find a new Drive storage option beside their Internal Storage directory. Tapping it will open the Google Drive app, giving users an easier option to view cloud-stored items.

Since Files is utilizing Drive's machine-learning GMS Ml-Kit Scanner, some editing tools are available after scanning. It appears that users will be able to add a filter to their images or scanned documents, alongside other tools.

The update is slowly rolling out as it's unclear whether we're awaiting a formal update through the Play Store or a simpler server-side push.

The new document scanner is the second feature, coming in together with the app's "Smart Search." Google states the function allows users to search for specific text found within images and PDFs, locations, and objects from photos. The feature requires a moment before it can work, as the company adds it'll take some time before Smart Search is familiar with the data of uploaded content.

The powerful tool enters as an experiment. Smart Search in Files isn't available on every device, though Google hasn't made it clear which devices those are.

What you need to know

• Google Drive adds a new homepage section for its desktop version.
• Users will land on the new home page instead of the "My Activity" page after the latest update.
• With the new release, Google promises better file management and boosting productivity for Drive.

Google Drive users will soon land on a new homepage instead of the My Drive page when visiting the website. The company is introducing a new view that promises to make files more accessible and faster.

The new homepage is simply dubbed "Home," and the aim is to boost productivity across views in Google Drive for the web, the search giant announced in an accompanying blog post. There are three primary changes to the new homepage; the first of which is a more modern design incorporating the Google Material Design 3 standards that allows users to navigate through your files more efficiently.

Secondly, on the left pane, Home will be the first section you will see once the new update starts to roll out. It offers personalized file and folder suggestions based on Google's machine-learning algorithms. These suggestions showcase files and folders that users have recently opened, shared, or edited alongside the ones attached to users' Google Calendar events.

To allow users to operate Google Drive more efficiently, Filter chips further accompany these suggestions to narrow down the search and find relevant files, which work in conjunction with existing chips like Type, People, Modified, and Location.

The search giant further notes that with the new Google Drive Home page, users will find their files quickly and allow users to collaborate with others more easily.

Once the new view is available for users, Google will provide a relevant banner showcasing the new Start page set to "Home." The company is also providing users with the option to change their view if they prefer the older home page. Users can change it in Settings despite the new view being enabled by default once the update hits the light of day.

Speaking of, the rollout has already started for some domains, and the extended rollout for more users is expected to begin on January 11, 2024. The new Home page will be available for all Google Workspace customers and personal Google account holders.

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What you need to know

• Users have started reporting their data is missing from Google's Drive cloud storage.
• While some files are missing, others have stated data is missing from files created, reverting them to a state that is several years old.
• Google states this issue is affecting a "limited number" of desktop Drive users, however, some have not reported using Drive on a PC.

Cloud storage isn't absolute, and several users are reporting an unfortunate experience with Google Drive and their files.

Quite a lengthy thread on Google's Support forums contains several reports from users who have experienced missing files in Drive (via 9to5Google). The original poster stated their Drive cloud storage is missing files, sending them back seven months to whatever saved items they had in May 2023.

Further digging highlights "activity doesn't show any changes" and "No files were deleted manually, so no files in Trash."

Another user reported that a Google Sheets file saved in Drive is now missing four years' worth of information. The user created the sheet in 2016, and the latest cloud storage problems are only providing data until 2019. The file's version history wrongfully states that January 2019 was the last recorded date and that the user is observing its "current version."

Problems like this continue for many users as they become vocal about not having a locally stored version of their missing files and data. Some users are being set back a few years, while others are missing a few months' worth.

Regarding the first report, the user contacted a member of Google's South Korean Support who attempted to enact a recovery program, but it failed.

A Google community manager has officially replied to the thread, stating the issue impacts a "limited subset of Drive for desktop users." It's been advised that users should not alter their root folder in Drive (DriveFS) and you should also not click "Disconnect Account."

However, despite the official notice, the problems' occurrence still doesn't appear defined. While some users have encountered the problem on a computer, others did not, likely utilizing the Drive app on an Android phone or other mobile device.

Android Central has reached out to Google for more information regarding this problem and will update accordingly.

What you need to know

• Google is rolling out an update for Workspace users that brings a new folder hierarchy in Drive for tablets and foldables.
• A new data column lets users see file-specific information like size and last date modified alongside a Material 3 color palette.
• These updates follow swiftly after Docs, Sheets, a Slides gained subtle changes for larger Android devices.

Google is preparing to bring a few improvements to Drive for owners of larger Android devices.

According to a Google Workspace post, the company is looking to shift Android tablets and foldables closer to the Drive's appearance on computers. This update is three-pronged, beginning with a new folder hierarchy above the main doclist. Google states this change should be a better option for users looking to keep track of where they've gone in the app.

Similarly, it will let users return to the main Drive view easily.

A new "data column" per file has made its way in, showing when a document was last modified and how large it is. Additionally, it appears that Google Drive will display who the last person was to make modifications to a document.

Lastly, tablets and foldables will receive Google's latest Material 3 design language in the app, which the company has been moving many of its apps to.

Businesses and others using Workspace on a rapid release schedule domain have started to receive the latest changes. As the rollout continues, Google is planning to release the update for scheduled release domains on November 27. Users with a personal Google account should gain this update, as well.

The Google Drive update aimed at larger Android displays is the second in seven days. The company rolled out a smaller patch that improved how users can edit their files in Docs, Sheets, and Slides. For Docs, Google added a "mode switcher" to let users swap between placing edits, suggestions, and various viewing modes.

Slides now provide a persistent editing bar, while Sheets automatically selects a cell when opening the app. These changes are planned to arrive on November 28 for scheduled release domains — personal accounts will have access to these, too.

Google Drive's visual refresher for larger mobile devices started back in March. This involved the app shifting its navigational bar from the bottom to the left side of the screen. Devices also gained the floating action button atop the bar, similar to what users on desktops see.

Several other aspects were changed, such as reducing the size of the "Suggested" and "Notifications" tab so users see more of their files as opposed to UI elements.

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What you need to know

• Google Drive is getting a makeover on the mobile app's homepage. 
• The facelift includes a refreshed suggested view and replacing the notifications view with the activity view, mirroring the recent web launch and introduced a more consolidated experience.
• The updated design is rolling out to Android and iOS users of Google Workspace, including those with personal accounts.

One of the latest improvements that Google Drive users will spot on their mobile devices is a visual refresh to the app’s homepage to make it easier to access your files on the cloud storage platform. 

In a Google Workspace blog post, the search giant announced a makeover to the mobile app’s homepage on Android and iOS devices, as part of ongoing efforts to streamline the file management experience for users.

The facelift includes a refreshed suggested view that “will allow you to see even more recommended files at once, such as those that have been recently opened, shared or edited,” the company said. This will make it easier and faster for users to locate the files they need.

The file management platform is also replacing its notifications view with the activity view, which mirrors the recent launch of the feature on the web version. This new consolidated view simplifies the user experience by amalgamating critical details, including pending access requests, recent comments, and items awaiting approvals, in one place. 

It’s also worth noting that users don’t have a specific setting to enable or disable the feature. For those who do not wish to see the revamped home tab, the app will simply open on your last-used tab, be it Shared or Files. 

The recent TLC that Google Drive received is merely the latest in an array of updates and improvements to the platform, which has also seen a visual refresh to the app on Android tablets. The tablet-friendly redesign was part of Google’s goal to take advantage of the available real estate on tablet screens and make files easier to spot. 

As for the latest redesign, the company notes that the update is rolling out on Android and iOS devices, and it will be available to all Google Workspace users and those who have personal accounts. 

Google Drive is a resourceful app that's integrated into many of Google's own products as well as some third-party platforms. One of the factors that makes this cloud storage service so versatile is that you can access it on multiple types of devices and platforms, be it Android, iOS, or Windows.

If you'd like to use your Drive account in tandem with your computer, you can simply get the desktop version of the app for Windows or macOS. Here's a guide that shows you how to set up and use the Google Drive for Desktop app. While the steps below demonstrate the process on Windows 11, the steps are more or less the same for both operating systems.

How to set up and use the Google Drive for Desktop app

You'll have to download and install the Google Drive for Desktop app before working out how to use it. Here's how to do that on your computer.

1. Go to the Google Support website and download the Google Drive for Desktop app.

2. Launch the Google Drive for Desktop installer file.

3. Check the options you want and click Install.

4. Click Launch once the installation is done.

5. Select Sign in with browser.

6. Choose the Google account you want to use.

7. Click Sign in once again.

8. Select the Open Preferences option from the pop-up.

9. Click Take tour to learn how to use Google Drive for Desktop.

10. Select the Google Drive option in the left-hand tab.

11. Choose either the Stream files or Mirror files setting.

After you're done taking a tour of the desktop app from Google, you can either stream your Google Drive files or choose to mirror them. Mirroring means all the files will be stored locally, so they'll be available offline. However, this takes up more space. Any changes made to your Google Drive files on the desktop app will be reflected everywhere else immediately. On the other hand, streaming files takes up less space, but you'll have to choose specific files for offline viewing. Changes made are synced as well.

To access and use your files through the Google Drive for Desktop app, you can launch the app from the desktop shortcut, start menu, system tray, or Windows Explorer shortcut. Uploading new files is as easy as copying and pasting or dragging files and folders into the Google Drive for Desktop app. Remember that any changes made to the Google Drive folder or files on your computer will be synced across all your devices.

Keep it all in the cloud for safety

Cloud storage is the best method of securing your most crucial data. It's one of the best contingency solutions and also makes it amazingly simple to streamline your workflow. Naturally, with a tool that's this important and convenient, you need to make sure you've got enough space to hold all your files and folders.

Google gives you 15GB as standard with any Google account. The problem with that is that it includes all your Google data, including Drive, Gmail and Google Photos. If you back up all your Photos content to the cloud, that space will run out pretty darn fast.

Fortunately, you can subscribe to the Google One plan to expand that storage allotment. It doesn't cost all that much, with the cheapest plan starting at $1.99 per month for 100GB. Google also throws in bonus features to subscribers, sweetening the pot with features like additional tools in Google Photos and a VPN.

What you need to know

• Google is adding native support for electronic signatures in Google Docs and Google Drive. 
• The function, which was limited to alpha testing in June, has now been released in beta. 
• The company is in the process of rolling out the new capability to individual Workspace users. 

Electronic signatures are an increasingly common way to sign legal documents or for companies to store or manage documents. So, it’s no surprise that Google is adding native support for electronic signatures in Google Docs and Google Drive. The tech giant announced an open beta of the new-ish eSignature capability on Google Workspace.

The new function — which was limited to alpha testing last June and is now released in beta — is intended for users to request, add, and track electronic signatures all from within the cloud-based productivity software. 

“To help streamline this workflow, we’re natively integrating eSignature in Google Docs, allowing you to request and add Signatures to official contracts, directly in Google Docs,” Google said in a statement.

At this point, it’s nothing fancy as the function right now includes an electronic signature input field that users can add directly within their documents.

However, Google explains that it expects to add other capabilities later this year, including an audit trail to track signatures in Google Docs; the ability to handle multiple signers, as well as non-Gmail users; and, finally, the ability to initiate electronic signatures from PDFs stored on Drive. 

There already exists a multitude of platforms that offer electronic signatures, including cloud-based options such as DocuSign and Dropbox, which acquired HelloSign in 2019, as well as local programs like Adobe Acrobat. 

So, Google’s new eSignature function may not exactly be breaking new ground, but it’s a welcome move by the company as it means users hopefully won’t have to switch between different apps or tabs as they work on contracts. With this new feature, requesting and adding electronic signatures will be part of the workflow for Workspace users.

Since the beta launch on August 8, the tech giant has been rolling out the new capability to individual Workspace users over the next 15 days. Group users can use the feature as well by having their Workspace admins apply for the beta version.

What you need to know

• Google outlines an update coming for Drive on the web.
• The update aims to improve the overall experience with Drive's location picker including new "suggested," "starred," and "all locations" tabs.
• Rapid-release domains will begin receiving the update on April 12 while scheduled-release domains are slated for April 26.

One of the latest improvements Google Drive users will spot on the web is the newly redesigned visual experience, according to a Google Workspace blog post. There are also some new functions to navigate the Drive location picker that users may find useful.

When moving a file or folder, Drive users will find three new options: "Suggested," "Starred," and "All locations." Google states that the shown tabs, when navigating to a folder location will now display a back button and the name of that location. Once rolled out, there will be details for a selected folder path, an option to create a new folder, and a new image notification if the item you're trying to move is headed for an empty folder.

A few other new things coming for Google Drive are as follows:

• Suggested locations and the option to reject the suggestion, which immediately removes it from the list
• Streamlined navigation that adds an inline button to complete the action of moving a file in one click
• A label if a folder is “view only” and explanations for why you might face an error when moving a file, such as not being the owner of a file 

These changes to Drive will be available for Google Workspace customers, G Suite Basic, and Business, as well as personal account holders. However, the update will roll out in stages. Rapid-release domains will begin receiving the new Drive updates on April 12. The company suggests giving it at least 15 days to completely push it through. Those scheduled release domains will have to wait until April 26, and that will follow the same update timeline as the former.

These updates to improve Drive are coming on the heels of quite an infuriating and recently revoked change to the service. Google faced a bit of pushback regarding an annoyingly quiet file limit for Drive users that locked many out of their accounts until they deleted their files to settle beneath that limit. Google ended up rolling back that file limit change following the backlash and said it would "explore alternate approaches" instead.

There are still new generative AI additions coming to Google's suite of Workspace apps like Docs and Gmail. These features are still being worked on behind-the-scenes with a limited group of trusted testers, for the moment. This is, of course, all a part of the hype surrounding Google's Bard AI chatbot.

Update (Apr 4, 1.25 pm ET): Google announces that it has removed the file limit.

What you need to know

• Google quietly rolled out a new 5 million file limit to Drive accounts on a larger scale.
• The change came without warning, and many have had their accounts locked until they delete hundreds, thousands, or millions of files.
• Google officially states this was done "to prevent misuse of our system."

Google has introduced a head-scratching new file limit to those heavily using its cloud storage service Drive.

A Redditor received a new message put forth by Google when they went into Drive (via Ars Technica). The failure message reads, "this account has exceeded the creation limit of 5 million items. To create more items, move items to the bin and delete them forever." This is how it was discovered that Google has quietly introduced a 5 million item limit to users' Drive storages without forewarning.

The Redditor explained that they have a 2TB Google Drive account which is currently sitting at 1.67TB out of that cap. It was then explained that even if your files are small (<400KB, as an example), you'll hit the new 5 million file limit well before your account data storage cap.

This warning is taking no prisoners as those who have purchased the 2TB, 5TB, 20TB, or 30TB for their Drive accounts (both business and consumer) will receive this message regardless. There is also a 400,000 shared file limit, but that's rectifiable by unsharing those files — you don't need to delete anything.

Both Ars Technica and the user on Reddit did a little digging and found that this has been a problem since February. Users started reporting it on the IssueTracker as confusion began to set in, with many assuming this was some sort of critical bug. That's unfortunately not the case, as some users reported a quiet confirmation about this new file limit by Google Support.

Furthermore, Ars Technica received confirmation from Google stating the new file limit is "a safeguard to prevent misuse of our system in a way that might impact the stability and safety of the system." The company clarified that this limit pertains to "how many items one user can create in any Drive" before stating that "the number of impacted users here is vanishingly small."

Text files, specifically, can be quite small, and there are times when we store tons of these for work or educational purposes. Google One sells different storage size plans, such as its 2TB plan for $10 a month or $100 per year, and its largest package also offers 30TB for $150 per month. Google may have to change how it displays packages for users now, or at least be more upfront about its file limit, considering they'll probably run out of "space" long before they hit the data cap they've actually paid for.

Update

Following backlash over quietly introducing a new file limit that limited the number of new items that could be created (separate from the data cap), Google announced this week that it is rolling back the change in order to "explore alternate approaches."

The company also ensures that any changes that are made will be appropriately communicated to users.

While this seemingly affected a small number of users, the change should still come as a relief for some who may have otherwise been forced to delete items from their drives.

What you need to know

• Google Drive has received a visual refresh on Android tablets.
• The cloud storage app has moved its navigation bar to the left side of the screen to take advantage of available real estate.
• The latest UI change is rolling out to users, with everyone expected to see it beginning on April 3.

Google is rolling out a new Drive update for Android tablets that includes a handful of tablet-friendly capabilities, some of which are consistent with the desktop version of the cloud storage app.

First up is the left-side navigation bar, which was previously located at the bottom of the screen. The navigation bar houses all the usual tabs for Home, Starred, Shared, and Files, with the floating action button sitting at the top like its desktop counterpart. There's also a hamburger menu above the FAB that allows you to navigate to various locations, including recent files, offline documents, backups, and the Trash folder.

Google notes in a blog post that this visual redesign aims "to take advantage of the larger screen" and make it easier to view file details. This means that the home screen now shows nine recent files. Before this change, you could only see two files at a time on the home screen.

In addition, the "Suggested" and "Notifications" tabs no longer take up a large portion of the interface. More specifically, each tab now displays three files in a row versus the previous layout's two files per row.

Google Drive also displays three small icons in the top right corner for Help, Settings, and your Google profile picture.

Google is now rolling out the new redesign in the Rapid Release domains, while the Scheduled Release domains should start seeing the UI change on April 3. The latest update should provide users with a tablet-friendly experience as part of Google's broader effort to make its first-party apps look better on larger screens.

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What you need to know

• Google is updating the look of its workspace apps with Material Design-based elements.
• Apps like Docs and Sheets are gaining added functionality with new chips, such as Maps and emoji voting.
• Third-party chips will roll out in the coming weeks from a number of apps.

Google's popular Workspace apps are getting a Material Design makeover. In the coming weeks, Google will give apps like Docs, Sheets, Drive, and Slides a fresh coat of paint while adding new features to help you get more done.

The new look for Google's Workspace apps is based on the company's Material Design 3, which can be seen across Google's products, including the latest Android phones. Google says the new visual update should help "streamline the daily flow of work even more."

In addition to the new look, Google is adding a bunch of new functionality to its Workspace apps with new smart chips. For example, in Google Sheets, a Place smart chip will let you insert the Google Maps data, allowing you to easily select and preview the location.

In addition to the Place smart chip, Sheets is also gaining a new Finance smart chip to insert stocks, mutual funds, and currencies. Expanded date capabilities also make it easier to insert important dates using @today, @yesterday, @tomorrow, and @date.

In addition, Google Docs is getting a new Stopwatch chip and an emoji voting chip, along with a new template for calendar event invites. Third-party smart chips are also making their way to the Workspace apps in the coming weeks, including those from Google's partners, such as Atlassian, Asana, Figma, Miro, Tableau, and ZenDesk.

Lastly, for Drive, Google is making it easier to access frequently used tasks like downloading and deleting multiple files at once. Users will also be able to access certain functions simply by hovering over items. And new search chips will also help user filter through files to find them quicker.

The new Google Docs and Drive features will be available in the coming weeks. However, the new smart chips for Sheets are available starting today. Google also has a separate Workspace blog post that explains how to use some of the new smart chips.

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What you need to know

• Google's Android apps on tablets have finally added drag and drop improvements.
• Google Slides now lets you drag text and images into other apps on Android.
• You can also now drag and drop files and folders around in Google Drive as well as use full mouse functionality in Docs' Android app as you would on the web.

Google introduced a bunch of upgrades to its Android tablet apps back in July in a bid to make them work better on larger screens and boost your productivity. Those improvements have finally made their way into Google Slides and Drive.

In a blog post, Google announced that it has rolled out a few updates to its Android apps for tablets, with Slides getting drag and drop improvements. As a result, you can now pull content such as text and images from Slides to another app when you have them open side-by-side.

To do so, you only need to open another app in split screen mode. Then, tap and hold the element you want to move and drag it to the destination app. Google Keep previously added this capability along with a few other apps, so this feature should work across various Google Workspace apps.

Google Drive already has this functionality as well, but the search giant is taking it a step further with a new improvement. This means you should now be able to drag and drop files and folders around in Drive. This comes in handy if you wish to transfer content from one folder to another within the app. You can do so either in the two-window or single app view.

Lastly, Google Docs has picked up full mouse support on Android tablets. This gives tablet owners access to the same full mouse functionality they have on the web. This means you can now click and drag across the text in order to select that portion instead of panning the entire document.

The updates come as Google rekindles its interest in Android tablets after putting them on the back burner for several years. One obvious reason why the Mountain View tech titan has been investing resources in Android apps on tablets is its plan to launch the Pixel Tablet next year, marking its big return to the tablet market after the Pixel Slate flopped a few years ago.

What you need to know

• Google Meet audio and video call service get new abilities.
• The calls can now be transcribed into text and saved in Google Docs.
• The transcribed file can be further protected in Google Drive.

Google kickstarted its Cloud Next '22 event early this week and made some new announcements about its popular video and audio call service. Google Meet calls can now be transcribed into text, and users can further save them in a Google Doc format, the company mentioned in an accompanying Workspace blog post. The saved file can be additionally accessed from Google Drive.

Google Meet is one of the most popular apps, especially after replacing the Google Duo app for iOS and Android devices. However, Google has stated the new feature can be accessed in Google Meet for desktop or laptop clients and is available only for the English language. Google says the transcribed file can be stored in the same "Meeting Recordings" folder of the Google Meet app from the accompanying Google Drive storage.

Before joining the Google Meet call, attendees will be notified that the call is being transcribed. These transcripts are intended to capture the meeting's discussion, serves as a record, and is helpful as a follow-up to attendees or host if they want to recall a particular segment or point in the whole discussion.

Meetings involving around 200 invitees, including the meeting host, co-hosts, and the transcript initiator, are said to be receiving the link of the transcription document to their respective emails. Another nifty feature here is that the "transcript will automatically be attached to the associated calendar invite for the meeting."

And for meetings involving more than 200 attendees, the transcribed file will be shared with meeting organizers, hosts, co-hosts, and individual users who initiated a transcription. Google says new transcription documents will be created along with the calendar invite if users are often into recurring meetings.

The transcribe feature will be turned on by default and "can be configured at the group, domain, or OU level." In the Google WorkSpace Education suite, consumers with a teaching license can turn on the feature, while users with a student license cannot.

The new feature is expected to roll out starting October 24. It will be available to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Starter, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade customers. Personal Google account users, amongst other Workspace users, are not eligible to utilize the new feature.

Google Drive is one of the best cloud services you can use to back up your data. In order to upload your images and videos to Google Photos or Drive on your desktop, you need to install the desktop app called Drive on your computer. Let's walk through the steps involved in installing Drive and using it to back up your photos and video clips.

How to install and set up Drive on your Windows PC

1. Go to google.com/drive/download/.

2. Click Download Drive for desktop and download the installer file.

2. Double-click the installer file once it has downloaded and install Drive for desktop.

3. Log in to your Google account after Drive is installed.

Now that Drive is installed, you can set it up to back up your photos.

How to set up Drive to back up photos and videos

With Drive for desktop installed on your PC or laptop, you're ready to start backing up all your photos and videos.

1. Find Google Drive in your system tray.

2. Click on the Drive icon in your system tray.

3. Click on the little gear icon and select Preferences.

4. Press the Add folder button.

5. Find and select the folder containing the photos and videos you'd like to back up.

6. You will be asked if you want to Sync with Google Drive or Back up to Google Photos. If you select both options, your photos and videos will go to both places and essentially take up twice the space. Click Done after choosing your preferences.

7. Once you have selected all the folders you want to back up and selected their destinations, click Save.

Going forward, your computer will automatically sync the folders you have selected and back them up regularly to both Google Drive and Google Photos as per your settings.

Should you upload to Google Drive, Google Photos, or both?

There are a lot of reasons why you'll want to back up your photos. For example, if your computer becomes damaged or disabled, you'll have your photos and images still in Google's excellent cloud storage. We don't recommend saving your files to both because it makes no sense to have two copies of your data occupying twice the amount of space.

Now that Google has unified its free 15GB associated with your Google account, Photos is included in that limit. Chances are, that base amount isn't going to cut it for your back up and you'll need to upgrade to a paid Google One plan to increase storage.

But where should you upload your pictures and videos, Photos or Drive? Both cloud services will protect your photos in the cloud. They'll be available on all of your devices, as long as you have an internet connection.

Google Photos offers the advantage of displaying your photos in the interface, making it easier to show them to others on your device. You can also search them by context, like searching for photos of your dog or your car. You can also edit photos directly in the app. Another powerful feature that Google Photos offers is called Live Albums. Live Albums allow you to sort your photos by person, place, or even pets automatically as you add them.

Meanwhile, backing up the photos to Google Drive gives you more of a file tree view of your photos. So if you're uploading photos for work or want to keep them separate from your personal photos, this is a good way to do it. Also, if you plan to make these images available on your PC, saving them to Google Drive makes more sense since entire folders can be made available offline on your PC automatically. That means you won't have to deliberately download them.

When it comes to sharing photos, Google Drive allows you to share groups of files or folders where the photos are stored. Google Photos requires you to select a day or select multiple photos and generate a shared link. If you plan to share images based on the day, Photos might be a good option. If you plan to share folders worth of photos, Drive is probably your best bet.

What you need to know

• The Google Drive widget is now available more widely on Android tablets.
• It has a new widget design that's circular, with shortcuts to additional apps like Docs, Sheets, and Slides.
• For the time being, this widget design is only available on Android tablets.

With the release of Android 12L, Google finally began paying serious attention to tablets after years of neglect, and since then, the company has given the platform almost equal treatment as Android phones, the most recent effort being the launch of a slew of new Android features for productivity, communication, and accessibility.

Part of that update is a Google Drive widget for many of the best Android tablets, which is now rolling out widely. In addition to the widget designs seen on smartphones, the pack includes an additional style with more shortcuts. The new design was first reported by 9to5Google.

The current set of design includes a flower petal-shaped style, a horizontal bar widget, and a rectangular one. The most recent addition has a circular design with dedicated Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets buttons. This means that you can now access those services with a single tap.

The new circular widget is currently only available on tablets running Google Drive version 2.22.357.1. You're out of luck if you're hoping to see the new design on your Android phone.

The existing features — such as the ability to quickly search and upload files, as well as the buttons for opening suggested files and the camera — are still available. However, in the new design, the button for creating a new document is missing. 

The additional widget design is only a part of Google's broader effort to improve user experience on tablets. A few days ago, the search giant released the September 2022 update for the Google Play system, with the ability to install Google Kids Space on a secondary user account on Android tablets.

What you need to know

• Google has rolled out a new update to Drive that makes it easier for Workspace customers to collaborate with visitors.
• The new feature will allow non-Google account owners to upload and create files in shared drives.
• However, the new Drive feature is not available to all users.

Google is expanding its sharing feature in Google Drive, allowing non-Google account owners to do more than just view or edit shared files owned by Workspace customers.

The search giant announced on its Workspace blog that Drive’s visitor sharing feature will now allow non-Google account holders to upload and create files within shared folders. The goal is to make collaboration easier for all stakeholders in an organization through one of the best cloud storage services.

Google initially introduced this feature in 2020 to allow Workspace customers to grant external users viewing and editing access to documents in their Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides. This access was protected by a PIN code for identity verification, but its limitations prevent people outside of an organization from providing their own content.

The latest update removes that restriction, providing more ways for Workspace users to collaborate with third parties. If you've turned on visitor sharing for your organization, the new capability will be available by default.

Google has begun rolling out the new sharing feature, though it will take a few more days for everyone to see it. While at that, this new capability will not be available to all Workspace customers. According to Google, it is only available to those on the Workspace Essentials, Business Standard, Business Plus, Education Plus, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus tiers.

This means you won't have access to the feature if you're on a Workspace Business Starter, Enterprise Essentials, Education Fundamentals, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business tiers. Personal Google account owners are also out of luck.

What you need to know

• Google is updating its Workspace apps with several tablet-optimized features.
• Users will be able to drag and drop content between apps such as Docs, Drive, Sheets, and Keep.
• Google Drive will open in split screen to view content when navigating folders.
• Users with keyboard will be able to use basic shortcuts for copying, pasting, and other functions.

Google continues to improve the tablet experience with Android 12L, updating its apps to bring more functionality and optimizations for large-screened Android devices. With its latest updates, Google's suite of Workspace applications is getting some helpful new features to help make the tablet experience more productive.

The first new feature Google is bringing to its apps is drag-and-drop. This will allow tablet users to move content between apps such as Google Docs, Sheets, and Chrome. In addition to moving content such as images and files into Drive, users can also upload links to files just by dropping them in.

This feature was recently announced for Keep, Google's note-taking app, but it looks like Google is doubling down on this feature as it continues adding more tablet experiences to its apps.

In addition to drag-and-drop, Google Drive will soon become easier to navigate thanks to split screen mode. When navigating through files, the app will open in a split screen view so that you can view folders on one side and content on another. This should make it easier to scour through files without constantly hitting the back button.

To open in split screen mode, tap the three-dot menu on a file and select "Open in new window."

Lastly, Google is throwing keyboard users a bone by enabling common keyboard commands used for navigation and functions like copy, paste, cut, and more.

These are the latest apps to be updated following Google's promise to update more than 20 of its own apps to be better optimized on large-screen devices. With Android 13 on the way, we will likely see more apps gaining support for tablet experiences. Google says these updates should roll out for Workspace and personal Google accounts in the next few weeks.

It may sound surprising, but Google Drive did not support keyboard shortcuts on the web until very recently. You can use the very elementary copy and paste shorthands in Drive for the web, but they're limited to Google Chrome on desktops for now. Here's how you can use shortcuts to copy and paste in Google Drive on the web.

How to use shortcuts to copy and paste in Google Drive on the web

There are a couple of things that you can do on Google Drive in Chrome for the web. Let's start with the basics. Here's how you can copy and paste a file within Drive on the web. If you're on macOS, replace all Ctrl commands with the ⌘ key.

1. Go to drive.google.com.

2. Select a file.

3. Press Ctrl + C.

4. Go the folder where you want to copy the file.

5. Press Ctrl + V.

6. A prompt will open up. Click Allow to give Chrome permission to copy and paste files in Drive.

7. If your file didn't copy to the folder, press Ctrl + V again.

Giving Google Chrome the necessary permission to read whatever you've copied is a one-time step. Going forward, you won't have to do it again, and your file will copy right away into whatever Google Drive folder you choose. This applies to all the keyboard shortcuts that were added to Drive along with the copy and paste shorthand.

Do note that using the copy-paste function creates an additional copy of the same file within your Google Drive. There's a much better shortcut to avoid having multiple copies of the same thing taking up your precious cloud storage space. You can simply cut and paste your file within Drive on Google Chrome. You follow exactly the same steps as above but press Ctrl + X instead of Ctrl + C once you've selected your file.

Doing more with Google Drive keyboard shortcuts

Aside from using the copy/paste and cut/paste functions, you can also do a few more things with the Google Drive shortcuts on Chrome. See, copying a file using Ctrl + C doesn't just copy the file only inside Drive. It also copies the URL to the file to your clipboard.

Pasting the copied file in a new Google Chrome tab copies the URL to that Drive file into the address bar. All you've got to do is hit Enter on your keyboard, and the said file will open up in that Chrome tab.

Alternatively, you can also paste the copied file into a file itself. For instance, if you copy a Google Drive file and hit Ctrl + V inside a Google Docs file, it pastes the link to that file into your document. You can preview the Drive file from within Docs, as featured in the image above.

These are just some of the shortcuts that you can follow to enrich your Google Drive experience. Become affluent with the best Google Drive tips and tricks, and you'll see your productivity and management on this excellent cloud storage service skyrocket.

What you need to know

• Google Drive finally lets you use common keyboard shortcuts to manage files on the web.
• The file storage service has added support for Ctrl + C (or ⌘ + C on Mac), Ctrl + X and Ctrl + V.
• However, the new capability is only available when you open Drive in Google Chrome.

If you've been using Google Drive on the web for a while, you might have assumed that you could use keyboard shortcuts to cut, copy, and paste files—until you realized that this has not actually been possible. That is changing now, thanks to a long-overdue update to the file storage service.

Google announced in a blog post that Drive is picking up support for common keyboard shortcuts, including Ctrl + C (or ⌘ + C on macOS), Ctrl + X, and Ctrl + V to move files to other locations. These shortcuts allow you to copy, cut, and paste files. 

It's difficult to imagine anyone who isn't familiar with these functions, and every PC owner knows them like the back of their hands. That is why it is surprising that Google Drive has only recently added this capability.

Having said that, it should now be much easier to manage files within Drive or replicate them elsewhere without having to right-click and select from the context menu. However, those aren't the only things the new shortcuts can do. For example, pressing Ctrl + C not only copies a file but also its URL and file name, allowing you to paste it into an email body or open it directly in a new tab.

In addition, you can use Ctrl+Enter to open files or folders in a new tab. This function is useful if you want to "view multiple files at once, or use different tabs to more easily organize files between two different folder locations," according to Google.

The search giant also recognizes the fact that moving files between locations might result in duplicate copies, thus requiring more storage space. It's not practical, particularly for those who rely on its 15GB free storage allocation. Google addresses this dilemma by enabling Ctrl + C and Ctrl + Shift + V to create a file shortcut instead of replicating the full-sized version.

If you are a Google Workspace customer or have a personal Google account, you should have access to the new shortcuts by now. The feature is set to become more widely available on many of the best Chromebooks and PCs later this week.

If you work from home, you'll find online storage space is invaluable for keeping all your notes, research, and projects in one place. There's more to consider than just pricing, but how much cloud storage you get for how little is probably the first thing you want to know. The best option right now is Google Drive. You get the most space for nothing, and if you do choose to pay for more storage, its pricing and options out-pace everyone else.

Best overall: Google Drive

Google Drive starts out by giving you 15GB of cloud storage for free. With this storage, you also get access to Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, which will automatically save in your online Drive folders as you work in them. To get started, you just need a Google account, which is essentially a Gmail account. You can upload and save images and files from mobile devices to your Drive storage, or access them from your cell phone or tablet at any time.

If you use Google Meet for video conferencing, you can access Drive from within the program and share these documents on your screen with your participants or send them through the chat feature. Drive also syncs with Gmail to easily send, receive, and save attachments. The one real drawback is the 15GB of space is shared among all Google apps, including Gmail. So, if you have a lot of saved messages in your inbox, just know this will tap into your overall cloud storage space.

You can up your storage and have it exclusively used for Google Drive by purchasing a monthly subscription called Google One. The lowest package is $20 per year for 100GB of space, though there are options for up to 30TB of space for a year subscription for $300. All Google subscriptions come with additional perks and savings with Google partners, including hotel and car rental discounts and savings at select restaurants and retailers.

Best for file recovery: Dropbox

Dropbox starts you with a free account, but you only get 2GB of space. Like Google Drive, you can use document and spreadsheet programs within your storage space. Dropbox has its own programs, or you can sync with Google or Microsoft's apps, like Docs or Word, within Dropbox, too.

One perk of using a paid Dropbox package is having file recovery. This means within 30 days of deleting a document, you can go back and retrieve it. Higher-priced packages, specifically business subscriptions, have Dropbox Rewind capabilities for 180 days or about half a year. This isn't limited to deleted files. Previous versions are also saved to be recovered if needed.

More storage space starts at $10 per month for a total of 2TB of space. Individuals can also purchase a 3TB account. Business accounts range between 3TB and unlimited storage space. This generally depends on your company size, with the 5TB and unlimited space options being charged a per-user fee rather than a straight monthly fee to cover everyone in an organization.

Best for Office users: Microsoft OneDrive

Microsoft OneDrive syncs with Microsoft Office, so they're automatically saved in the cloud as you create documents, slide presentations, or spreadsheets. When using Microsoft Teams, you can access any files from OneDrive and share them with screen share or through the chat feature with your participants. If you have Microsoft 365 stores locally on your desktop, you can still sync it with your OneDrive, so your files and changes made to them locally will also be updated in the cloud-stored copies.

Microsoft OneDrive comes with your Microsoft 365 subscription, both personal and business plans. Just like other online storage plans, you have a free storage option that comes with 5GB storage. As for paid plans, there are vastly different perks between personal and business plans. For one, all Home packages give you access to a plethora of apps, including Office and Skype. However, on the business side, only the highest-priced subscriptions give you Office apps. In reality, the best way to experience OneDrive is in conjunction with Office apps.

The lowest OneDrive subscription for businesses costs $5 per month per employee. This only gives you cloud storage, but you do get 1TB per user. Plus, you can send links to store in folders and files to others who can either view them or be granted editing capabilities. Microsoft 365 Business Standard is the lowest business program available that includes Microsoft's business apps like Exchange, OneNote, SharePoint, and Teams, along with the full Office programs. This subscription is $12 per user per month. Each user will get 1TB of storage with this package, too.

Best for HIPAA/FedRAMP compliance: Box

Box works really well on Mac computers and devices, though it works on PCs, too. Box does offer online storage but has several additional programs for a full business solution. Some of these include branding assistance, data loss protection, and password enforcement. Box also offers to watermark your files to further protect your business and brand. You can sync Box with Microsoft Office and G Suite apps.

One great tool offered through Box helps with compliance to HIPAA and FedRAMP requirements in both internal and external communication. Box is designed to fulfill all storage requirements for both HIPPA and FedRAMP, too. Even if you use an external document or file creation program, like Word or Sheets, Box helps you send or store them securely.

You are welcome to try any of Box's programs for 14 days, but all of its business subscriptions do require payment. Box has four business packages available ranging from $7 per user per month and $35 per user per month. Each package is billed annually, and only the highest tiered program, Box Enterprise, offers HIPAA/FedRAMP compliance. Box Starter, the least expensive option, gives you 100GB of storage space where all the other subscriptions give you unlimited space.

Amazon offers online storage for photos and videos. It is a great place to keep digital copies of movies without having to hunt them down later when you're ready to watch them. Plus, since they aren't saved locally to a computer hard drive, you won't ever lose them if your computer crashes. Everyone with an Amazon account gets 5GB of storage to use for uploading and storing photos no matter what. This is enough space to hold about 2,500 photos. Amazon lets you create albums that make it easier to sort, store, and find images. Amazon also has features that let you share stored files with other people.

Best photo and video storage: Amazon Drive

If you are a Prime member, all photo storage is free, which gives you 5GB of storage space to dedicate to videos. However, if you need more than 5GB, Amazon has a couple of options available. The most popular storage plan offered by Amazon Drive is the $20 yearly subscription for 100GB. This is enough space to store several hours worth of video, both those you record with your personal device and digital copies of your favorite movies or TV shows. Amazon has a 1TB option, too, for $60 per year.

Amazon Drive is a good tool for photographers or wedding videographers that need a quick and secure place to store images, but overall, Amazon Drive is geared more towards individuals rather than businesses. Even then, online storage places like Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive also let you save images but make it easier to import them into photo editing programs. Amazon Drive simply stores them. Amazon is the best option for video storage, however. You can use your Amazon Prime account to watch them at any time.

Best secure encryption: MEGA

MEGA is a neat storage app that encrypts every piece of data that you store in it. It uses the highest encryption code available, the same level of security used by militaries and financial institutions, to secure their sensitive information. Because your information is scrambled, it's harder for hackers or even ransomware to figure it out it's ever intercepted. All of your information is then secured with a passkey that only you know. The drawback is if you lose your password, you lose access to your data because part of MEGA's secure is not giving you a password recovery option.

To get started with MEGA, you need to create an account. This is free and comes with 50GB of online storage space, but you do have to participate in MEGA's redemption program. It's basically a referral program that gives more storage space depending on the number of people you refer to who also use MEGA for, at minimum, 90 days. Within MEGA there is a chat feature so you can connect with colleagues. There aren't any documents or other project creation tools within MEGA. It only holds files you've already created using other programs, like Notebook or Word on your desktop.

For more storage space and access to additional MEGA apps, like expiration dates for publicly shared files, you will need to purchase a subscription. The lowest-priced subscription is MEGA Pro Lite. For $6 per month, you get 400 GB of space. Other packages give you 2TB, 8TB, and 16TB of space for a reasonable monthly fee. This isn't nearly the amount of space offered by other companies, like Google, Microsoft, and Dropbox, but 2TB is still plenty of room to keep a good number of files, including 500,000 images or over 171 million documents. MEGA isn't located in the U.S., and its USD amount is only an estimate. You will be charged in Euros, which may be different when the final price is converted into your country's currency.

Bottom line

Each one of these awesome cloud storage programs has perks the others don't have, but overall, Google Drive offers the most storage space, business apps, and collaboration tools for businesses for the best price. With Google Drive, especially as part of your G Suite subscription, lets you and colleagues collaborate in real-time in documents, presentations, and spreadsheets. It's easy to tap into files through Google Meet to share projects during video conferencing through screen share or chat. Plus, you can tap into savings and discounts through Google's partners, including hotels and restaurants.

Everyone with a Gmail account gets 15GB of Drive storage space for free, though it is shared among other Google apps, including Gmail. Gmail alone can potentially use up a lot of this space. But with a paid subscription, you can have access to up to 30TB of space, which is more than most small businesses will use collaborative, let alone by individual employees.

Credits — The team that worked on this guide

Nicole Johnston writes for multiple Future Publishing brands, including Android Central, covering primarily internet security and privacy programs. She has over 13 years of research and writing experience in both the public and private sectors, including seven years testing and reviewing consumer products and five evaluating antivirus software, parental controls, VPNs, and identity theft services.

Update, Feb 15 (4:25 p.m. ET): Rolling out to all Workspace users

What you need to know

• Google launched a new beta for Google Drive to better filter search results.
• The new feature works in a similar manner to Gmail's search chips.
• The beta release is available to all Google Workspace editions.

Gmail's handy feature for narrowing down search results in order to locate certain files faster is coming to Google Drive with a new beta update.

Google announced today that search chips are available on Google Drive as a beta update. As you might expect, it allows you to refine your search results when looking for specific files stored in Drive. This capability makes the search process faster, taking irrelevant results out of the equation.

Search chips appear only after you've entered your initial query. Above the list of results, you can use different chips to refine your search further. Multiple chips can be used at the same time as well. These filters include file location, attachment type, people, the date a file was last modified, and tasks.

The process helps ensure that the results are as close to your query as possible. More importantly, it also speeds up the method, so you don't lose much time sifting through results you don't want.

Drive search chips are available to all Workspace tiers. You can filter your search results on the best laptops, though it is unclear if you can do the same on Android. It's worth noting that Gmail's Android app picked up search chips in September, so the same functionality arriving for Drive's mobile app is not out of the question.

Google says the beta program will be open to domains in the coming weeks. If you are an eligible end user, you can also join the beta program by clicking here. If you are approved, you will have access to the chips in the Google groups provided during sign-up.

Update, Feb 15 (4:25 p.m. ET) ― Search chips out of beta, rolling out now

After a brief beta phase, Google has announced that search chips are now generally available, meaning you'll no longer have to sign up for the beta to use the new feature. Search chips will roll out to Workspace and G Suite users over a two-week period starting February 15.

Anyone and everyone who uses an Android phone or a computer know of Google Drive's existence. It's Google's very own cloud storage system, and it's one of the best cloud storage services out there. If you have a Google account, you get 15GB of free space in Google Drive right off the bat.

If you need more space, you can always bump up the 15GB allotment by upgrading to the paid Google One subscription. Whether you're using the paid plan or the free one, you should learn to take advantage of Google Drive's capabilities. Here are some of the best Google Drive tips and tricks.

Tip 1: Find shared files easier

There are many benefits of having all your data in the cloud, especially if you automatically back up data to Google Drive. The drawback is that you may have trouble finding a specific file shared with you or one you shared with someone else. You can save yourself the headache of rummaging through all your files by using operators to find files easier in Drive.

You can do this on your Android phone or your computer. For Android phones, first open the Google Drive app. Next, locate the search bar in the app. To find files you shared with others, use the to: operator. To find files someone shared with you, use the from: operator. Type the operator and the email address that shared the file with you, or you shared to, in the search bar and press enter. For yourself, use me instead of an email ID.

Source: Namerah Saud Fatmi / Android Central

The same operators can be used on the desktop version of Google Drive. Open Google Drive on your computer's browser. Enter the same operator and keywords as above into the search bar to find what you are looking for.

If you have the Google Drive desktop app, open the folder and enter the same operator and keywords into the search bar to find what you are looking for.

Tip 2: Create shortcuts

Another way to quickly find a specific file or folder is by creating shortcuts. This can be done right from the comfort of your Android phone by using the Google Drive app or through the desktop. Likewise, you can create shortcuts for the app or even your computer from the app.

Open Google Drive on your laptop or computer's internet browser. Right-click on the file you want to create a shortcut for. Click on Add a shortcut to Drive.

On your phone, open the Google Drive app. Find the file or folder that you want to create a shortcut for. Tap the three dots on the file or folder. Tap on Add shortcut to Drive.

Source: Namerah Saud Fatmi / Android Central

Choose the location of your shortcut. Tap Add.

Source: Namerah Saud Fatmi / Android Central

You can set up shortcuts for four locations from your phone. These are My Drive, Computers, Shared with me, and Starred.

Tip 3: Change folder colors

Arrange all your Google Drive folders neatly by changing their colors. You can use personal coordination methods, for example, hues of green for work-related folders or shades of pink for personal ones. Here's how you can change folder colors in the cloud storage platform.

For PC users, open Google Drive on your desktop browser. Right-click on a folder. Select Change color from the drop-down menu. Choose any color.

To change folder colors in Drive on Android, open the Google Drive app. Tap on Files and then choose a folder. Press and hold on the folder and tap on the three dots in the top right corner. Tap on Change color and pick a shade.

Source: Namerah Saud Fatmi / Android Central

Tip 4: View file activity

Google has made it very easy to collaborate on projects with your colleagues or mates. For example, you can view file activity in Google Drive that helps you share comments or know who edited the file. If you're doing this on your computer, take the following steps.

Open Google Drive on your desktop browser. Look for the circular button with i inside and click on it. Click on Activity.

On your Android phone, open the Google Drive app. Pick a file and tap on the three dots on it. Tap on Details & activity. Scroll down to the Activity section.

Source: Namerah Saud Fatmi / Android Central

Tip 5: Reorder your files

It's convenient to have all your data organized within Google Drive. You don't have to drag and rearrange every item, simply reorder everything in bulk. You can reorder your files and sort them by name, last modified, and last opened.

If you're a desktop user, open Google Drive on the browser. Look for the current sorting criteria and click on it. Change the sorter to reorder your files. Click on the arrow the change the arrangement from ascending to descending order.

Phone users can achieve the same result as well. Open the Google Drive app. Tap on Files. Find the current sorter in the upper right corner and tap it. Choose sorting criteria.

Source: Namerah Saud Fatmi / Android Central

The reorder changes are saved to your Google Drive across platforms. So if you sort your files by one criterion on desktop or your phone, it will appear on other devices.

Tip 6: Block spam

Spam is undoubtedly one of the most common problems plaguing us since the inception of the internet. Unfortunately, bots and other denizens of the interweb figured out how to send us spam in Google Drive. To counter this annoying problem, here's how you can block spam in Google Drive.

Desktop users need to go to drive.google.com. Next, right-click on the file that you want to block. Select Block from the drop-down menu. Finally, click Block once again, and you're all set.

You can achieve the same results on your Android phone. Start by opening the Google Drive app. Press and hold on the file you want to block. Tap on Block user@gmail.com (the spam sender's email address) and then tap on Block once more to confirm.

Source: Namerah Saud Fatmi / Android Central

If you accidentally block the wrong person, it's easy to rectify your mistake. You can unblock any user from the web or your Android phone by visiting the People and sharing section of your Google account settings.

What you need to know

• New evidence has been uncovered that suggests Google will no longer offer unlimited backups for WhatsApp chats in Google Drive.
• The site WABetaInfo discovered code purportedly showing the upcoming limits and warnings for WhatsApp users.
• It is not clear at this time if, or when, these changes might take effect.

For quite some time now, WhatsApp users have had the ability to back up their chat history seamlessly and media to Google Drive for free directly from their Android phones — meaning, that data didn't count against a user's Google Drive (or later, Google One) storage quota. However, according to findings from WABetaInfo, this gravy train may soon be leaving the station.

Based on the source code the site was able to dig up, it appears that the free unlimited storage option is coming to an end sooner rather than later.

Initially, WABetaInfo said that it considered this news little more than a rumor after it previously reported that WhatsApp had been working on its own backup management options late in 2021, but with the uncovering of several key source code strings (below), it appears that the possibility of limited Google Drive backups for WhatsApp chats is moving towards reality.

To be clear, this news doesn't mean that WhatsApp users will no longer be able to backup their entire chat history to Google Drive; instead, it just means they might have to pay for backups beyond a specific limit. WABetaInfo found evidence that WhatsApp will let users know when their backups are nearly full, when they've reached their free limits, and when these new policy changes will take effect.

Of course, Google Drive and Google One are still some of the most reliable and affordable cloud storage options, but there are ways to manage and free up even more space should you need to.

WhatsApp has long been considered one of the best messaging apps worldwide. However, over the past year, some of its competitors like Telegram and Signal have gained ground, thanks to a series of policy missteps and service outages at WhatsApp's parent company, Meta. Even still, the full suite of features and ubiquity of the app, particularly in places outside the U.S., should ensure its dominance for the foreseeable future.

Best answer: As of December 2021, the types of files that violate Google Drive's content policy include: child sexual abuse and exploitation, dangerous and illegal activities, harassment, bullying, threats, hate speech, malware, misleading content, explicit non-consensual imagery (NCEI), phishing, sexually explicit material, violence, gore, and violent organizations and movements.

What kinds of files violate Google Drive's content policies?

Google recently made public the latest terms of its Abuse Program Policies and Enforcement policy. The newest policy spells out exactly how it applies to content uploaded to its Google Workspace services, which includes Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, and new Sites features.

As part of the update, Google shared a complete list of content that may be removed or blocked on services, including Google Drive based on applicable laws. In addition to applying to offenses such as account hijacking and inactivity, the latest version of the Google Drive content policy more specifically applies to the following content:

• Child sexual abuse and exploitation
• Circumvention
• Dangerous and illegal activities
• Harassment, bullying, and threats
• Hate speech
• Impersonation and misrepresentation
• Malware and similar malicious content
• Misleading content
• Non-consensual explicit imagery (NCEI)
• Personal and confidential information
• Phishing
• Regulated goods and services
• Sexually explicit material
• Spam
• Violence and gore
• Violent organizations and movements

It's worth noting that when it comes to applying these policies, Google does make some exceptions based on artistic, educational, documentary, and scientific considerations. The company is also transparent about not blocking or flagging content in situations "where there are other substantial benefits to the public from not taking action on the content."

How does Google apply these policies

While Google previously promised to file a report with the appropriate authorities to investigate the matter regarding any illegal material and activities, until recently, most files that violated these terms were simply flagged and restricted from being publicly shared.

As part of the latest policy update, however, Google also sends users who go against the policy an email detailing the violation and explaining how they can request a review of the restriction. This gives users who may have uploaded violating content on accident the chance to review the issue and submit an official appeal.

According to Google, this new accountability measure has already begun to roll out on both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains. It will continue until it's activated for everyone across all Workspace tiers and G Suite licenses. While there is not currently a timeline for when the latest policy update is coming to personal Google Accounts, it's likely to happen in the future based on previous launches.

What you need to know

• Google announced a new feature that warns you about suspicious files on Drive.
• A yellow banner will show up at the top of a document that potentially contains malware.
• The same security measure was previously rolled out to Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawings.

Some Google Drive users may not be stranger to various forms of attacks distributed through the platform, including phishing lure and ransomware attacks. To help you stay on top of potentially malicious files, Google has introduced a new security feature to Drive.

Google Drive will now start displaying a warning banner when you are about to download and open a potentially dubious document, image, or any type of file. The new feature is rolling out across all Google Workspace, G Suite Basic and G Suite Business tiers.

The yellow banner shows up at the top of an attachment page after you click on a link. It should appear before a file is downloaded to your laptop, warning you that it looks suspicious and "might be used to steal your personal information."

You'll recognize the security alert if you've been using Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawings. At Google's Cloud Next 2021, the search giant announced new measures to help safeguard users from malicious files. These alerts were rolled out to those file syncing services late last year.

It comes in handy if you frequently use Google Drive, which isn't exactly safe from abusive behavior, like most other file hosting platforms. In 2020, scammers were spotted exploiting Drive to send out emails and push notifications via Drive. The messages appeared to be legitimate at first glance, but they directed recipients to malicious websites.

Just like any other phased rollout, the new Drive security alert won't be immediately available to everyone, but it should arrive over the next two weeks.