There are a few changes in the new Google Drive. When someone shares a document with you there is no longer a “Shared with Me” option on the left hand side. Now it is named “Incoming.”
Unlike the rest of Drive, you only need to single click to launch one of the documents in “Incoming.”
Hover
If you hover over an incoming file you will notice icons that reveal themselves.
Download
The first icon of a down arrow with a line under it is to download the file.
Drive Folder
The second icon is a folder icon with the Drive icon on it. This will add the file to My Drive. This is something you want to do. You can not organize the files in “Incoming.” In order to organize the shared file into a folder and to find it more readily you will want to click on this to “Add to My Drive.”
More
You will notice on Android tablets and other Google products that a vertical 3 dot icon is the more options icon.
The more options icon allows you to share with someone else, star the document, rename it, make a copy or remove it from “Incoming.”
The more options icon also allows you to choose to open the document with a different product than the default. For example, if the file is an Office document, you can click on the more options icon and choose to “Open with” and choose “Google Docs.” This will make a copy of the Office document and convert the copy into Google Docs.
3 thoughts on “New Google Drive: Shared Becomes Incoming”
That is a rather weird title to use for shared…”Incoming.” Wonder why they did that?
I’d assumed because “shared” doesn’t tell you about the ownership of the document. Ie did you share the document with someone else? Or did someone else share the document with you?
I like this change – my students always got confused about Shared meaning both something they shared with others and was shared with them by others. This clarifies what is coming to them from “outside” and what is going out from their own drive.