Controlling the View in Drive

by Allen Wyatt
(last updated January 2, 2014)

The purpose of Google Drive is to store files so that you can easily work with them. Drive provides two different ways you can look at (and work with) the files you've stored or created.

  • List View. Shows a vertical listing of all your files, sorted by whatever column you select. (The colums are Title, Owner, and Last Modified.) You open a file by clicking on its title.
  • Grid View. Shows small thumbnails images for all your files, organized both horizontally and vertically (like a grid). You can sort using a control at the upper-left of the grid area. You open a file by double-clicking on it.

You switch between the two views by using the Switch to List or Switch to Grid buttons, near the upper-right corner of the Drive screen. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. Switching between views in Drive.

Just click one of the buttons and the view immediately changes. As you work with the differing views, you'll discover that Grid view takes a bit longer to display than does List view, particularly if you don't have a fast Internet connection. The reason is because Drive needs to generate the larger preview thumbnail images used in Grid view. Thus, if you have many, many files in Drive or if you have a slower Internet connection, you may want to work more with List view than with Grid view.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Automatically Updating Styles

When you add formatting to some text in your document, Word may apply your formatting to every other part of your ...

Discover More

Finding Where Templates Are Stored

The first step in modifying templates is to find out where they are stored on your system. Here's the easiest way to ...

Discover More

Changing Default Search Settings

Excel provides some great tools for finding information in a worksheet or a workbook. Changing the default settings used ...

Discover More
More DriveTips

Working with Text Files

One of the most plain-vanilla types of files you can store in Drive is a text file. Here's how to work with the content ...

Discover More

Making Fast Work of Uploading Files to Drive

What's the fastest way to get files into your Drive space? Why, dragging and dropping, of course! You'll find the ...

Discover More

Limiting which File Types You See in Drive

Overwhelmed with the number of files displayed on your screen when using Drive? Here's a handy way you can limit what is ...

Discover More
Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 9 - 0?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

Links and Sharing
OUR COMPANY
OUR PRODUCTS
OUR AUTHORS
OUR SITES
 

Copyright © 2020 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.