When Chrome launched a decade ago, one if its marquee features was a unified field for entering URLs and searching. The browser’s Material Theme revamp last year added rich inline results, and Google is now integrating Drive search and file suggestions.
Chrome’s Google Drive search capability was first announced in March as a G Suite beta. Aimed at enterprise customers, Chrome will also search Drive — in addition to the web — when any query is entered into the Omnibox. This is full lookup instead of just tapping into previous documents that you’ve opened in the browser.
Both individual files and folders will appear in the standard dropdown, while owner: and type: filters are supported. You can enter “type:spreadsheet” or any other file type (Docs, Sheets, Slides, PDFs) to see matching results. These results are accompanied by a descriptive favicon.
Google Drive search in Chrome requires G Suite Enterprise, Enterprise for Education, or Business editions, as well as version 69 of the browser. It’s available for Chrome OS, Linux, Mac, and Windows when Chrome Sync is enabled.
It will be enabled by default for organizations starting December 16th, though end users can manually disable it:
- Open Chrome Browser and go to More > Settings
- Under People, click Sync.
- Turn on or off Google Drive search selections.
More about Google Drive:
- How to quickly scan documents with the Google Drive app
- Google Drive for Android adds manual dark theme setting
- Drive for Android and iOS can now fill out PDF forms
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