Just after reading the title of this post many people may have the question that we can create folders and just move that file into whatever folder it belongs to. It sounds good and I am sure a lot of people do this thing already in Google Drive and our device storage as well. As we all know, not everyone is same and they keep files here and there and when they need it, they look in folders or just search them. The other thing - for example, is that I have a file that has some content which belongs to two or three different categories. I know you I can put in one folder and create a shortcut for that file in two other folders. But that's time consuming.
I am sure this new feature in Google Drive may not solve all your file management miseries but it can make it easier to find files which you need to find easily.
Introducing "Categories"
Google is working on this "Categories" feature. I spotted this feature in January but I was not completely sure if it's something Google Drive already have for users (specifically workspace users). As it turned out, this is a completely new feature which will not be limited to workspace users. The continuous addition of new code in Google Drive's Android app related to Categories feature indicates toward it. It will be available to personal account users. This feature basically allows you to put a specific file in different categories. Google workspace users have this 'labels' feature where an admin can create labels and users can apply these labels to files. Here is a video about labels. The "Categories" feature is kinda similar but it's not limited to workspace users. Here is a quick look at the screenshots of the feature in Google Drive's Android app.
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Which Categories btw?
Google Drive will let you select from 12 categories. Here are they -
- Auto
- Banking
- Expenses
- Home
- IDS
- Insurance
- Medical
- Pets
- School
- Taxes
- Travel
- Work
How it's going to work?
According to the changes which I have spotted in the Android app, Google Drive will put all the categories on the "Home" tab. This will make it easier to jump into specific categories. We can put files into categories by tapping the 3 dots icon which is given in front of every file. The 3 dots option opens the context menu and here you will have a "Manage Categories" option. Tapping it opens the categories list and here you can select one or multiple categories in which you want the file to appear. The second screenshot above gives us a hint of the categories section. That screen with "categories" shows up while force stopping and launching Google Drive app again, but as soon as the app is loaded the "Categories" section disappears because it's work in progress.
Availability
This feature will come for Android, iOS and Web. I know I found it in Android, but Google will make it available on iOS and Web as well, otherwise what's the point of such feature if it's not synced between different platforms. The feature is currently in work and it won't come very soon. Google has recently rolled out an advance search filter feature on iOS which I found in the Android version of Google Drive previous year in October, it is not released publicly on Android yet. So this category feature might be launched on iOS first and we have to wait a month or two before it gets rolled out to Android, which honestly sucks.
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