Google Drive file uploads may soon get a long-overdue refresh (APK teardown)

When you’re looking to move files on or off your phone, you’ve got plenty of options, from Quick Share, to just using pulling out a USB cable. But Google Drive has got to be one of the most convenient solutions for Android users, easily handling large files, and making it a snap to share them with others. While there’s a lot to like there already, Google’s been working on some tweaks that promise to make using Drive even better, by means of a totally overhauled upload experience.

Right now, uploading files from your phone to Drive is a little bare-bones. You browse your device, choose your file, and watch the indicator spin as it uploads to Google’s cloud. While that gets the job done, Drive could soon be getting some much more fleshed-out uploading tools.

We’re taking a look at Google’s new Drive 2.24.347 release, where we’re able to activate some in-development changes to get an early preview.

So far, there hasn’t been an explicit place for uploads within Drive; in-progress files appear at the top of that list, but that’s it. But Google appears to be working on a dedicated Uploads screen you’ll access through the app’s menu. There you can see all your upcoming, in-progress, and even previous uploads, all in one convenient spot.

Google’s also working to start showing actual upload progress, replacing the endlessly spinning circle with one that slowly fills to reflect upload completion. More than that, you’ll get a numerical percentage readout, and also be able to see the total file size for your reference. When you’re uploading big files like high-res videos, that sounds like a very welcome, long overdue change. Drive’s also working on a progress bar at the screen bottom, where you’ll always be able to check how far along your uploads are at a glance.

Expect Drive to start being more explicit about what it does with your uploads. While so far the app’s defaulted to just putting them in whatever folder you’re viewing when the upload commences, we find evidence that the app could start asking you to specify where Drive should store each file, like you can see above.

All this will likely be coming soon, although it’s entirely possible that Google will change its mind about some of these changes prior to public implementation. One new change you can try out already is Drive’s implementation of predictive back gestures, handy when you’re jumping between a lot of folders. For the rest, you’ll just have to wait.