Jack Wallen shows you how easy it is now to copy and paste files into Google Drive.
Image: Goodpics / Adobe Stock
I’m a powerful user of Google Drive and Google Docs. I depend on daily service to be productive, and given that my modus operandi has been to work as efficiently as possible over the years, not having the standard keyboard shortcuts available on Drive has been a frustration.
Fortunately, Google has finally brought us these standard keyboard shortcuts that we love to use. Yes, I’m talking about CTRL + C and CTRL + V to copy and paste. My fingers are so used to hitting these two combinations that I’ve often found myself cursing at Google for not allowing them to work on Drive. Instead, I’ve always had to right-click to copy and paste to the Google cloud storage platform.
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Good: No more.
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Finally, Google has enabled keyboard shortcuts for copying and pasting for Google Drive. Now the CTRL + C / V shortcut keys work exactly like the right click | Function Make a copy. This means that every time you paste a file into Drive, the file name will start with “Copy from …”.
There are three caveats to using this new feature. The first is that it currently only works with the Chrome web browser. Second, you need to give Chrome access to the clipboard, which is nowhere to be found in the Drive documentation. Luckily, I found out because you don’t have to. Finally, the feature only works with files, not folders.
Let’s make this feature work.
How to enable the clipboard in Chrome
This is the only step Google has stopped mentioning in its documentation.
Open Chrome and go to drive.google.com. Once the page is loaded, click the lock icon on the left side of the address bar. This will open a pop-up window that now includes an ON / OFF slider for the clipboard (Figure A).
Figure A
Image: Jack Wallen / TechRepublic. The clipboard toggle switch must be on.
Switch the ON / OFF slider to the ON position. You will then be prompted to reload the page (Figure B).
Figure B
Image: Jack Wallen / TechRepublic. You must reload your browser before the changes take effect.
How to use standard keyboard shortcuts with Google Drive
Now that you’ve accessed Chrome on your clipboard, scroll to the file you want to copy and select it. Once selected, press the CTRL + C keyboard shortcut.
With the file copied, navigate to the directory where you want to host the new copy, and press the CTRL + V keyboard shortcut to paste the file. You should now have a file starting with “Copy From” in the folder.
And that’s all there is to enable and use standard keyboard shortcuts to copy and paste to Google Drive. Hopefully, the developers will make sure that users have access to the feature, regardless of the browser they use.
If you’re an advanced user of Google Drive and use Chrome, your workflow has just become a little more efficient.
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