Google has taken major steps today to ensure that what happens in the cloud stays in the cloud. If you ever downloaded an email attachment before, you’ve probably noticed how each of these files takes time to download, wastes space on your computer and can even be hard to find buried among other random files in that overused Downloads folder. With today’s update to Gmail, however, you can now skip that cumbersome process of downloading attachments and view them directly in Google Drive without ever leaving Gmail! This makes it much easier to access these files later, whether using your computer, phone or tablet.
The next time you open an email with attachments in Gmail, you’ll see previews at the bottom of the email for file types like photos, videos, spreadsheets and PDFs.
To view a file preview in full-screen, just click on the preview. From there you can also read the content, search for particular phrases and even browse through other attachments as well.
Now you can also save your attachments directly to Drive using the Drive button that appears when hovering over a preview. If you want to save files locally, however, you can still download the attachment to your device like before.
Google says this new feature is rolling out to desktops this week to Drive’s over 120 million active users.
How much space could you start saving with cloud-based email attachments?
