Organizing all those Google Docs

How many Google Docs are in your drive? How many folders? What about those Shared drives? How often do you really need or want to see the folders that are five years old?

I was recently on campus (really) and decided to visit the Walk-in Tech-help station in the Student Union for help with my ever-expanding Google Drive. I had been frustrated that I had to scroll through pages of folders in search of the few I now use on a daily basis. Some were folders within folders, followed by all the individual documents within those folders. Ugh!  

I originally thought many of these items were simply duplicates and that they could be condensed or deleted. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Deleting a file/folder in one place would delete it completely. Thankfully, my on-campus visit was not in vain. I learned about the feature of "starring" folders. Similar to only seeing a selection of courses on your Canvas Dashboard, when you click on "starred" in the Google Drive menu, you only see the folders you have currently selected to show. One of the greatest benefits of this feature is that you can include files from "My Drive" and any of your "Shared Drives" in the starred area. I no longer need to switch back and forth between My Drive and Shared Drives when I go about my daily business.  

To add a file or folder to your starred area:

1.  Right-click a file or folder and select Add to Starred    

To see only your starred files or folders:

1. On the left navigation panel, click Starred.

For this semester, I've curated my own selection of folders that I want to find quickly. I no longer need to see all the old files every time I click on Google Drive. They are still there, however, for the day and time I need to review them. The "starred" feature has simplified my professional life!