Google Drive and its suite of productivity programs like Sheets, Docs, and Slides offer incredible features for free. If you don’t have the money to pay for a Microsoft 365 subscription, you can very easily move forward with your work projects using the Google offerings. Some features are quite rudimentary, however, with Google still having to play catch up in certain areas. This is exactly what Google is trying to do with new updates that are incoming.
A post from 9to5Google has outlined changes that are coming to the share prompt user interface (UI), that Google says will make sharing files much simpler.
The change will see all sharing options brought together into a single box that will appear when you click or tap the Share button found in the top-right corner of all Google documents. The first time you click the Share button after the update has rolled out Google will offer to walk you through the changes.
The first thing Google will show you is the People with Access area, which will include you as the owner of the document and everybody who you have given access to it, including their level of access. You will also be able to limit or allow general file access, based for example on having the link to the file.
The update also brings with it a settings button in the top-right corner of the Sharing box, which will allow users to set options like whether editors can change permissions and share the document or whether viewers and editors can download, print, and copy the document.
It looks like Google is currently in the process of rolling out this UI at the moment, so you should expect to see it sometime soon. All you will have to do to check if it is active on your version of Google Drive is hit the Share button.
All-in-all, this update does make the sharing experience much simpler and improves the usability of Google Drive’s productivity suite of programs. It is these small changes that add up over time and could see Google making a dent in Microsoft’s dominance of the sector.
If you are already a Google Drive user you should check out our in-depth Google Docs review to see exactly what the free word processor is capable of.
