Comfortably among the top-rankedcloud storage servicesout there, Google Drive has evolved over the years, and so have its desktop and mobile apps. We keep a close eye on all the new changes coming to the Android version of this essentialGoogle Workspaceapp, and there have been a few interesting ones over the last few months, including a push to enhancethe Google Drive experience on foldable phones. A minor and seemingly under-development visual redesign of the Drive app for Android has now leaked, courtesy of a well-known source of Google leaks.
First shared byAssembleDebugon X, this redesign features highlighted backgrounds on all the folders in grid view, which doesn’t look all that pleasing at first glance. We’re all for trying out new patterns for the purposes of a redesign, but why fix something that isn’t broken?
Current Google Drive UI (left); The newly leaked version (right)
Away from this visual change, the Drive app is also gaining a wider+ Newbutton, which in its previous form was just a+icon, allowing users to create a new folder, upload a file, scan a document/image, plus shortcuts for Docs, Sheets, and Slides.
Interestingly, the scan functionality has been moved right above the+ Newbutton with this redesign, denoted with a circular camera icon in green. This is something that most people can get on board with as it makes the scanner more prominently visible and easier to access. The addition of this camera icon is perhaps why Google chose to stretch the + button a little, though the exact reasoning behind this decision is still unclear.
The source didn’t reveal if there was a specific version of Google Drive for Android that enabled this redesign or if it’s hiding behind a flag. In any case, I’m not seeing these changes on my Drive app just yet, so it’s quite likely that this is part of a limited rollout. With so many unknowns right now, it’s impossible to get a timeline for this feature’s wider availability. Whenever that day comes, we hope the Google Drive team will do away with the odd highlighting of folders and keep the rest of the tweaks in place.
We’ve covered a slew of upcoming Google Drive updates in the second half of 2023, with a recent leak detailingadvanced search filterswith the ability to search for files or documents based on metrics like people, file type, and date. Another Google Drive update added atwo-page layout for PDFs, a move meant to bolster PDF viewing on book-type foldables and tablets.
