if you've been using Google Drive for a
while you may find you have a lot of
different files and that can make it
hard to find what you're looking for
fortunately Drive has a lot of features
built in to help you find the files you
need and keep your files organized for
example if you're looking for a
particular file you can use the search
bar at the top just click the bar type
what you're looking for and press Enter
if you think you found the file you need
but you're not quite sure you can use
the preview option to just give it a
quick glance without actually opening it
to do this select the file then click
the preview button near the upper-right
from here you can choose to open the
file for editing or click the arrow on
the left to get back to your drive
sorting is another useful feature for
example you can sort your files
alphabetically from A to Z or from Z to
a or by when they were last modified
this can be really helpful when looking
for a file you edited last week or last
year filters are similar to the search
option but they're a little more broad
and can help to narrow down your files
if you're not quite sure what you're
looking for to use a filter click the
small arrow on the right in the search
box then use the drop down menu to
select what you're looking for in this
example I'm just looking for
spreadsheets that I created then go
ahead and click search and there we go
if you have a lot of files on your
Google Drive folders are probably the
best way to keep related files together
to create a new folder select the new
button then click folder type a name for
your new folder then press Enter or
click the Create button your new folder
will be created
add a file to a folder simply click and
drag you can then double-click to open a
folder and here's the file that we added
let's go back to drive and try adding
multiple files to a folder at once there
are a few different ways to do this for
example you can click and drag to select
multiple files
another method is to press and hold the
ctrl key on your keyboard or the command
key if you're on a Mac computer and then
click the files you want to select you
can also use this method to deselect a
file that you didn't mean to choose
if there's a file you no longer need on
your drive you can delete it to delete a
file simply select it then click the
remove button in the upper right when
you do this the file will be moved to
the trash but for the file to be deleted
permanently you'll need to click the
trash select the drop down menu near the
top and then select empty trash this
will permanently delete any files or
folders in the trash can which can free
up space in your Google Drive ok there's
just one more thing we want to show you
if you want to see all of the options
you have for a file you can right-click
it from here you can preview the file
open it for editing share it or even
download a version of the file to your
computer
alright those are the basics and we hope
these tips will help to keep your drive
organized and make it easy to find the
files you need GCF global creating
opportunities for a better life