Advertisement

Google rolls out Drive shortcuts ahead of folder structure changes

Starting on September 30th, all your files will live in a single location.

Google has started giving everyone access to Drive shortcuts, a few months after it first revealed its beta version. The feature was designed to make it easier to organize files and to point people to specific ones across various folders. You can, for instance, create a shortcut for a certain file saved in a shared drive and then send that shortcut to people in your team. They'll only be able to open it if they have access to the drive where it's saved, though -- those who don't have access to the drive can only see the shortcut.

The tech giant is rolling out the feature ahead of changing Drive's folder structure. Starting on September 30th, all your files will live in a single location -- it will no longer be possible to place a file in multiple folders, in case you have quite a few that are meant to be accessed by different people. After the change takes place, the files that live in multiple folders will gradually become shortcuts. Finally, to make the transition easier, Google is replacing the "Add to My Drive" button's function, so that tapping it will add a shortcut to Drive instead.