Google Drive is one of many Google services, that's receiving upgrades, and this lot promises to make it a lot easier to search for files, folders and more within the cloud-based storage service.
Dubbed "search chips," Google Drive for users of the Workspace services will now have the option to search for documents and files based on the files' location, type, the people with whom they’ve been shared, when the files were last modified and more. These options come in the form of an additional suite of small drop-down menus nested below the scratch bar in Google Drive.
This might sound like a trivially simple upgrade, but as a user of Drive for work, I can’t begin to tell you how frustrating it’s been to try and track down various documents in my own segment of Workspace-grade Drive, let alone try and find various files shared across the Tom’s Guide team and our publisher Future.
Unsurprisingly, I write a lot on a daily basis. Trying to distinguish one iPhone 14 or Samsung Galaxy S22 story draft from another in search results can be a minor nightmare, with documents served up from mere hours ago to nearly two years ago with seemingly little or no logic.
Google itself recognised that searching for a few keywords the user believes might be relevant to a desired file or document can be too broad and leads to inefficient searching and inaccurate results.
It’s hoped that by offering an extra degree of filtering, finding files will become a lot easier. I for one welcome this change with open arms.
Other Drive improvements have also been added, such as serving up spelling suggestions along with search chips, allowing search chips to work on their own or together, and offering additional date options to the “last modified” chip.
Rollout of this upgrade has already started, though it could take some 15 days from Feb. 15 for the search chips to be added to your version of Drive on the Google Workspace.
As this improvement has been designed for enterprise users, don’t expect to see it on the personal version of Google Drive just yet. I’m hoping Google extends the update to all users of Drive before too long.
Alongside a redesign of Gmail, it’s good to see Google is looking at refining some of its widely used tools, as good as they are. Tweaks that streamline things and make life easier for users are definitely appreciated.
More recently, Google Drive just got the copy and paste upgrade that will make your life much easier as well.
Want to try out another new Google enhancement? Google Search's new dark mode is rolling out to different devices and browsers right now.
