If you haven’t managed to organize Google Drive yet and need to find something in a hurry, you may have trouble finding a specific file. Here’s how to quickly find Google Drive.

Quick access to Google Drive

Google Drive has a feature that sits at the top of the main page with suggestions for recently opened or edited and potentially important files. This feature is called Quick Access, and it’s one of the easiest ways to find a file that you open regularly. You can enable Quick Access from Settings at any time.

On the main page of your drive, click the Settings icon in the top right corner and click Settings.

Click

Scroll down to the «Suggestions» section, check «Make Relevant Files Convenient When You Need Them Quickly», and then click «Done».

Turn on quick access by checking the

After enabling quick access, the next time you open the drive, a section with several suggestions for related files will appear at the top of the page.

An example showing quick access and suggested files at the top of the page.

Find your drive

If your file is not showing up in the Quick Access section, then one of the next things you can try is to search your drive for a specific item. You can do it right from the search bar at the top of the page.

In the search bar, start typing a file name and Drive will dynamically analyze all your files for a match. Click on the file when you see it in the list of results to open it.

Start typing the filename and then click the result in the list below to open it.

Search result filter

As of February 2019, Google has implemented a more advanced way to filter files on your drive. It uses a list of file types that you can select from the entire drive and then cycle through the results until you find the file you want.

On the Google Drive home page, click on the search bar and a list of file types will appear. You can choose from PDFs, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, photos and images, and videos.

Click on the search box and a list of file types to choose from will appear.

Click on the type you want to filter.

Select the file type you want to filter from your drive.

Once you click on a file type, all matching files will be displayed. To open a file, all you have to do is double click on it.

Double click the file to open it.

Advanced Result Filter

If you still can’t find the file you’re looking for, you can use the advanced search filter to narrow things down even further.

This time, when you click on the search bar, click «More search tools» at the bottom of the list.

Click the search box, and then click More Search Tools to refine your search even further.

When you click «More Search Tools», a new panel will open with a more detailed way to find the file you were looking for. Additional fields to fill in:

Fill in any of the fields that can help you get more accurate results and click «Search».

Select and complete any of the options below, then click Search.

As before, all files matching your search query are listed below the search bar. To open a file, double-click it and let the disk do the rest.

Double click any of the files in the list to open them.

Finding a file by size

If you need to find something on your disk based on file size, you can sort the files based on their size. You can display items from largest to smallest, or smallest to largest, depending on what you’re looking for.

In the left pane, under Storage, select the amount of storage — 1.6 GB out of 17 GB — and all your files will be listed in the main disk partition. By default, everything is displayed from largest to smallest.

Click on the storage indicator on your drive to sort files by size.

To sort everything from smallest to largest, click Storage Used. The arrow next to the text will change direction, indicating that the sort order has been changed.

To change the sort order, click

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