New clean-up features for Google drive to deal with messy files

Users of the Google Drive cloud-based file storage system will find a number of new options for managing their documents, according to changes announced by the company today. Features recently added by Google include new toolbar options for moving existing files to other locations or for adding new files to Drive. Another change enables users to drag and drop files found through searches into different folder locations in Drive.

The updated capabilities were revealed this week in a pair of posts on the Google Drive and Google Apps Updates blogs. “Saving lots of files in Google Drive is a great way to keep them safe,” Google Drive software engineer Lior Biran said in a blog post today. “But as you put more and more files there, keeping things organized can be a bit of a challenge.” The latest updates rolled out by Google, “will help you more easily put things where they belong,” Biran said.

Another new feature is designed to make it easier for users to organize Drive files before they’ve even uploaded them to the Google app. “For example, if you’re previewing a document that’s not already in My Drive, you’ll now see an option to Add to My Drive in the toolbar at the top of the screen,” according to a Wednesday post on the Apps Updates blog. “If you add that item to My Drive (or if you’re previewing an item that’s already located in My Drive), you’ll now be able to quickly and easily move that file to different folders, directly from the preview screen.” The changes are set to be rolled out to all Google Drive users in stages over the next two weeks, according to Google.

Google Drive is just one of many document storage applications that offer users both free and paid options for storing and managing files in the cloud. Because of the mix of paid and unpaid users, as well as individual versus enterprise customers, for each provider, it’s not always easy to make apples-to-apples comparisons between cloud storage providers. Google last year reported that it had 1 million paid customers for Drive, most of them businesses. Other cloud storage providers also rely heavily on business users for their revenues. In December, Box reported that its paid customer base had grown to 54,000 customers, including more than half of the Fortune 500 companies, while Dropbox said it serves 150,000 companies through its Dropbox Business offering.