At the beginning of 2013, I made a commitment to use Google Drive to store all my TechRepublic files instead of the network share I had been using for years. It has been a very successful experiment so far and I have run into very little trouble along the way.

Tracking files

One little tip I can share involves measuring the number of files in a particular Google Drive folder and assessing what types of files occupy that folder. The basic idea is to start the download process but not complete it.

  • Navigate to the folder you want to examine and hover your mouse over it.
  • Click the more dropdown arrow and select the Download menu item.

After a few seconds, Google Drive will show you how many files are in the folder and provide a breakdown of included file types, similar to the one shown in Figure A. Click the Cancel button when you are finished looking at the listing.

Figure A

Folder breakdown

One caveat I will mention, if the folder you are examining is very large, Google Drive will tell you there are too many files to count and won’t finish the counting. (Figure B)

Figure B

Too many to count

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