Let’s be honest, we have not from the beginning of our use of Google Drive been diligent about organizing it and now it’s a hot mess! Here are a few steps to help clean it up.
Create a Hot Mess Folder
Let’s start fresh!!! In your Google Drive create a folder and call it “Hot mess” or whatever you want 🙂 Now DRAG EVERYTHING in your Google Drive into this folder. This may take you some time. Do this while you’re watching a tv. Now your Google Drive appears to have a single folder.
Create New Folders
Now that your Google Drive is down to “one folder” think about how you wish you had organized your Google Drive. Create folders you think you will need.
Tip: Create a “Share” folder and set the settings to be “Anyone with the link can view.” Anything you put in that folder you have confidence you can share out and others will be able to see the file.
Z – Move
As you need a file or folder, single click on it in Google Drive and press Z to move it. Only bother moving and organizing files you open. If you don’t need it why spend the time to hassle organizing it. Note: you can also right click on the file or folder and choose “Move.”
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Star It
Single click on a file in Google Drive and press S to star it. You can alternatively right click to do this as well. A complaint I frequently hear is that Drive is cluttered up with student work. A way to get around this is to star any of your files that you might want to look at ever again. Get in the habit! If you have dragged all your files to the “Hot mess” folder and you end up opening a file again… it must have been important. Star it.
In Google Drive, click on the tiny triangle in the search bar to bring up the Drive filter. Click on “Starred” and then under “Item name” put at least one word you know is in the document title. Not sure what the document was named? Search using “Has the words.”
