Finding your way around your Google Drive files could just get a lot easier: Evidence suggests that you’ll soon be able to categorize your files into different groups, like banking and work, to keep them better organized.
This is evident from the hidden code spotted in the Google Drive app by DeSpAndroid (through Android Police). Apps often lay the coding foundation for future features before those features go live and are announced to users.
According to the app, the categories you can avail are Auto, Banking, Expenses, Home, IDs, Insurance, Medical, Pets, School, Taxes, Travel and Work. From this leak, it doesn’t appear that custom labels will be allowed, but these twelve categories cover the business of modern life quite well.
As Android Police notes, these categories are similar to the labeling system that businesses can use in Google Workspace. However, this should also be available for individual users, on Android, iOS and the web.
How it will work
Here’s how it works: From the Home tab in the Android app, you can tap the three dots next to a file and then choose from the list of categories. A file can be in multiple categories, making the feature potentially more useful than the current folder system.
We’re not getting any indication here as to when the switch might be flipped to allow users to access file categories: the report on TheSpAndroid says “it won’t come anytime soon,” so presumably there’s still work to be done before it’s ready for the public.
Given Google’s recent and very committed push into artificial intelligence, it’s possible there’s also some form of AI processing involved in categorizing files for you (or at least suggesting categories based on a file name or its contents). of it). Suggested categories do appear in the screens produced by the hidden code.
We now know that Google I/O 2024 will kick off on May 14 this year, so between all the Android 15 and Pixel 8a news, we might get a few announcements about new Google Drive features – and of course we’ll bring you all the news from the event.