Google Drive to Make You Keep Your Files in Order

It seems that Google has got tired of keeping endless terabytes of trash on its clouds. The update Google Drive gets this month is meant to handle this better. Now Drive users will be forced to store their files in better order – or get them deleted at all. The actual migration is already scheduled for 2022.

The bad habit Google confronts now is one of keeping multiple copies of the same file in multiple locations. Hardly does it do any good to its owners while they can just create shortcuts to access these files from anywhere. But, once provided as an option in 2020, now it seems the only way to go on.

After the introduction of Google Workspace and mass migration to online platforms last year, Google servers get overloaded with various working stuff, like documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and so on. One of the ways to use space more efficiently is to get rid of useless copies which are present there in abundance. Armed with AI, Google Workspace declares war on the habit of mindless copying.

In the following weeks, the owners of accounts will receive alerts that their identical files will soon be removed and replaced by shortcuts instead. Their owners will be able to choose whether to apply this change everywhere or only within their corporate accounts.

Removal of extra copies will not affect access to them, Google assures. All the access rights will be preserved, based on shortcut locations and permissions granted previously. If you need multiple files to create various versions of it, you may discover (if not yet) that Google Drive supports version history, so, unless you have multiple teams modifying the same origin in different ways, this can help you restore the original version. Anyway, you can rename and slightly edit the file to make it recognizable as different from the source.

What do you feel about it? Would you be glad to have extra space freed with this move? Or do you consider multiple versions of the same file more comfortable? Do you support Google in this initiative? Share your opinion here in the comments!