Whether you’re a new or pro user of Google Drive, using the platform in an organized way can save time, increase your productivity, and also help you to find folders and files faster.
With this in mind, if you search for an article on how to organize Google Drive, this guide can massively help you as I have researched a lot and listed over 12 valuable tips.
No matter why and how much you use the platform, you can manage your Drive in a better way after reading the entire post here.
What Is The Best Way To Organize Google Drive?
There is no one-stop solution to manage your Google Drive. You have to follow multiple steps to organize the folders and files.
Properly naming your folder and file can help you to find them easily. Selecting different colors for different folders can let you know why you set the color.
Creating a shortcut for a specific folder or file can save time to find it without going to the main directory or file path.
Using the preview feature on Google Drive will allow you to see a document without going into editing mode or opening the document in another tab.
Deleting the superfluous files and folders from your account will help you to keep the drive clean and organized to store more important documents.
Like these techniques, you can follow endless tips from this guide and keep your Google Drive organized and standardized.
Let’s start with the main part of the article!
12 Tips on Organizing Google Drive in 2022:
Since Google Drive is all around your way like you can use the service on your android phone or iPhone, computer, or laptop either via the app or via a browser, the shared 12 tips can be applied on your preferred device.
Before you follow the tips and tricks, if you’re a beginner in this platform, you have to know the basics of Google Drive.
Here’s a brief on learning the basics of Drive:
1. Know the Basics of Google Drive First:
Google Drive is a free and lightweight online-based data-storing platform offered by Google. You can use your Gmail address to use the service for free, and they will give you 15GB of free space.
The platform is open for android, computer, iPhone, and MAC users. No matter which device are you using, if you have a Gmail address, you’re a valuable user of Google.
In the platform, you can create a folder, doc, PowerPoint project, excel sheet, drawing project, and a lot of things and share them with other users.
The receiver can edit, read, and see real-time changes and edits either by you or other users who have access to the same file or folder.
You can also synchronize Google Drive with your phone and computer to upload the local changes into the online version.
These are the basic info about Google Drive. You can explore more about the platform from some of our previously posted articles here.
2. Name Your Folder & File:
Suppose you have 10 folders and 10 documents on your Drive account, and each of the files is not named well, you’ll encounter a lot of issues when finding a particular file or folder.
To overcome such issues, naming them with different names can help you. For an instant, if you have a folder where you stored some important photos, you can name the folder something like this “Important Photos”.
If you don’t know how to create a folder in Google Drive, go to Drive and from the homepage, right-click on your mouse or directly click on the “New” button.
Name the folder depending on the data you’ll store in that folder. It will help you to remember why you named this folder.
3. Set Color For A Folder in Your Drive:
There are 18 colors in Google Drive that you can set with your folder name. This is one of the most interesting features of GD for those who want to remember their folder name by seeing the color.
You can set colors in folders but you cannot set colors in any file. We hope the feature of allowing users to set a color on file will come soon.
Here’s how to set a color to a folder on Google Drive.
- Open your drive on a browser
- Select a folder and right-click on your mouse
- Hover over the “Change color” option.
- Select a color based on your needs among 18 available colors
4. Set Emoji With a Folder Name:
Emoji is now a great way to expose your expression on the web. In addition to using text-based names when creating a new folder or renaming an old folder, you can use Emojis.
There are endless websites in the internet world that offer countless emojis for free. You can directly copy the emoji from there and paste it into your folder name.
Getemoji.com is one of the most popular websites where you can find unlimited emojis without any charge.
Here’s how to add an emoji to a folder on your Google Drive:
- Log into your account.
- Right-click your mouse to create a new folder.
- Click on “New Folder”
- Go to getemoji.com and copy one of the emojis by right-clicking > copy.
- In the rename box, paste the emoji and click on Ok.
5. Create Shortcut:
If you have a lot of folders, subfolders, and files in your Drive, it may require a lot of time and effort to reach a folder location within a short time.
Then what’s the solution for this?
Creating a shortcut for a folder or file can save a lot of time as you see on your Windows or MAC system.
The same feature is available on Google Drive. You can easily create a shortcut for any folder and file and set the shortcut on the homepage of your account.
Here’s how to make a shortcut for any folder or file on your Google Drive:
We’re assuming you want to create a shortcut for a folder. However, creating a shortcut for a folder and a file is the same. If you know how to do one, another will be easier!
- Go to the folder path
- Right-click on your mouse and click “Add Shortcut to Drive”.
- As soon as you click on Add Shortcut to Drive, the system will show you a new window.
- Finish the shortcut-creating process by clicking on the “Add Shortcut” button. This action will create a new folder-type icon on your Driver’s homepage, and when you click on the icon, it will take you to the main folder location.
6. Make Folder or File Starred:
Do you want to mark some folders or files as Starred?
However, what’s the meaning of Starred?
Well, Starred in Google Drive means a system that allows people to mark some specific folder or file in a particular place.
For instance, when you mark a folder as starred, all the starred folders can be found in a folder named “Starred” located on the left side of the account.
If you have some favorite files or folders that you want to keep in one place to find them easily, make sure you check the feature on your Drive.
Here’s how to add a folder or file starred on Google Drive:
- Right-click on the folder or file you want to mark as starred.
- Select “Add to Starred”.
- Now the folder has been marked as starred and can be found in the starred folder.
In addition to marking them starred, you can also remove them from the folder at any time.
7. Add a Description to Each File:
Adding a description to a specific folder or file can help you to know more about the document. Google Drive has a hidden feature that will allow you to add a description.
Here’s how to add:
- Select a folder or file.
- Click on the three-dots icon from the top menu.
- Click on the View Details.
- Scroll down and find the pencil icon.
- Click on it and add a description.
8. Find Folders and Files in An Organized and Faster Way:
Do you want to find folders or files in a faster way? Google Drive’s built-in search feature can play a vital role in helping your documents.
Here are some advanced search techniques that you can follow to find files and folders within a short time.
In general, you can directly search in Google Drive to find something. However, to go in deep with the search, you have to use the search filter.
- Click on the search box. Type your keyword and hit enter.
- Now click on the Filtering feature.
- Click on the “Any” option to select a specific document type. If you would like to find a doc file using the search, select Documents from the menu and click on the search.
- As you can see in the image, there are so many filtering features available on the page. Try yourself and see the result.
9. Save Time – Preview a File:
Do you want to see a document without going into editing mode? People follow this technique to save time.
But this feature is only applicable for viewing documents, not folders. To preview a document, right-click on your mouse and click on “Preview”.
10. Delete Unnecessary Files and Folders:
You may find countless folders and files that you no longer need in your Drive. Check every folder and file and try to remove them to keep your place clean and organized.
11. Remove Additional Apps:
Google Drive allows users to install the additional extension to add an extra feature. Users can add and remove the extensions.
If you have used any extension in the past and the extension is not needed, try to remove it
To remove an app on Google Drive: Drive > Settings > Manage App > Select “Option” > Disconnect From Drive.
12. Make it List View:
There are mainly two viewing styles available in Google Drive. List and grid views. The grid view is a widely used style for most Drive users as the style allows users to see folders and files in a large view.
On the other hand, the List view is good for finding files within a short time. So you can keep the list view enabled when using the platform.
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Final Word:
So, have you tried any of the mentioned tips to organize your Google Drive after reading the post on How To Organize Google Drive? if not yet, make sure you have some time in your hand to decorate the area to make a better workspace.
