Google Drive has an update rolling out for the web version of the cloud storage platform that will come in handy for power users. Over the course of the next few days, Google will be adding a drag and drop feature for folders to the service. What this will mean is that a user could drag a file from their desktop to Google Drive while it is open in the Chrome browser and drop it into the storage service. This will all but end the time consuming and awkward opening up of a file dialog box to perform the feature. Now if this sounds familiar, it should. You can drag and drop files to the root of your Google Drive now. This update allows you to drop directly to folders.
The news of the update came from the Google Apps Blog and in order to take advantage of the feature, you will have to be using the latest version of Chrome or Firefox and will have to have that browser tab open to Drive.
Productivity Gains With Drag and Drop in Google Drive
Ultimately the goal of this new feature is to speed up the process required to move a file from your desktop PC to the service. By not requiring that you use the web-based file uploader or use the
Google Drive for Android
PC Drive client (which is still pretty handy to have anyway), you effectively are able to treat Chrome as if it were another file explorer window on your computer. For a quick move a set of files, this should significantly cut down on the confusion on how to do it and the number of clicks to perform it.
Interestingly in the blog post, there is no mention of this being a PC only feature. The post uses the term “desktop” which should mean PC or Mac. If you are a Mac user of Google Drive and try this, please do leave a comment here or on Google+ to let me know if it works for you.
Finally, it may take up to 3 days for everyone to see this update on the web-based version of Google Drive. It is slated for rapid release so by Monday of next week, everyone should have it as an option to try when it come to moving files from their desktop to their cloud storage.
