Are you sure you know all the cool functionality Google Docs Suite has to offer you? Whether you’ve been using this cloud storage for years or you just got your hands on it, there’s always more to discover. Here are 8 clever hacks you may have no idea about!
1. You Can Search Inside Photos and PDF Files
Did you know that uploaded PDFs and image files become completely searchable when you upload them to Google Drive? No? Well, you should take advantage of this feature right now.
Also, you can edit this kind of files within the application too. Simply right-click an uploaded PDF or image file, then choose Open with Google Docs. Depending on the quality of file, Google drive will be able to transform those visuals into texts – a handy feature when dealing with scanned documents.
Additionally, you can store as many photos, as you like on Google Drive (without losing any free space) as long as the resolution size of those is less than 2048×2048.
2. You Can Scan Documents With Google Drive
If you have an Android phone and installed the native Google Drive app for Android, then you can use your smartphone as a portable scanner (sorry Apple fans, this feature isn’t available for iOS yet).
Access the front screen of the app, tap the large plus icon and afterwards choose Scan from the pop-up menu. The automatic detection is pretty accurate, though you can also rotate and crop images manually if needed. All your scans are instantly uploaded to your Google Drive and saved as PDF files.
3. You Can Dictate Your Documents
There’s no need to install any additional dictating software. Just open a new text document in Google Drive, select Tools, and the Voice Typing. Click the mic icon and you are ready to go. You can right-click the underlined words to receive alternative suggestions. The app is rather accurate and supports common voice commands like “bold”, “italics”, “go to the end of the line” and so on.
4. You Can Adjust Sharing Permissions
Heads up, Google Drive is an excellent collaboration tool, especially for distributed teams. You probably do know about the one-click doc-sharing feature, but you may not have looked into all of the options available.
First, you can regulate whether another user can comment, view or edit the shared file. Next, you can review who has access to the document in the first place and what their roles/permissions are. Lastly, you can adjust various link sharing options and set the access to public, specific people only and so on.
5. You Can Use Google Drive Offline
You can enjoy the Google Drive Suite even in offline mode, but you need to activate the feature first. For this click the settings cog in the upper right corner on the front page of the Google drive, head to Settings and on the General tab tick the box “Sync…offline” and the app will start caching all the recent Drive files while you’re offline.
Though you won’t be able to watch videos or open photos in offline mode, you’ll be able to view, edit and create new files in native Google Drive formats even when you are not connected to the web.
6. You Can Browse Through Your Files Using Voice
Again, no need to type some search terms whenever you’re looking for a specific file. You can just say the words.
In order to this, you’ll have to activate Google Now – the apps smart voice assistance available for Android users. Launch the app and say “search Drive for + your file name”.
7. You Can Quickly Discover The Largest File On Your Drive
Those 17 GB of free space can end up faster than you blink, if you’re using this cloud storage regularly. If you’re not ready to upgrade yet and pay for extra space, schedule a spring clean. That could be done quite fast with this hack.
To identify the largest file, go to the Drive’s main screen and look in the left bottom corner. You’ll see exactly how much space you have used so far. Next, click the small Drive entry (or this link directly) and the largest files will show up at the top of the list and you can start cleaning from there.
8. You Can Quickly Sync Files To and From Your Desktop
When you install the Google Drive desktop client for Windows or Mac, you receive access to all the files on your computer and you can choose which folders or docs to sync with one click.
It reduces the time and efforts required for uploading documents, as the client also gives you offline access to all the files on your Drive. Meaning if you can make the changes offline they’ll get synced once you are connected to a network.
