Google Drive Quicksearch

The blog post introduces a lesser-known feature of the Google Drive Desktop app for Mac, which allows users to quickly search their Drive files using a keyboard shortcut. By pressing Command + Option + G, a search box appears, enabling users to locate documents without opening a browser. While newer versions of the app allow for Spotlight indexing, the author prefers the dedicated search for its reliability and mental separation.

Recently I found out that if you have the Google Drive Desktop app installed on Mac, you can invoke a quick search function that works much like Spotlight, but for your Google Drive data. I don’t know what this feature is actually called. It’s likely not quick search, but I also didn’t have anything else to call it.

If you have it installed and signed in, simply press command + option + G and it pulls up a search box.

It’s worth noting that in more recent versions of Drive Desktop, you can directly enable Spotlight indexing as well in the preferences, however I’ve had mixed luck with how well it works, and honestly for me if I’m searching for something in Drive, I know it’s there and I like having the mental separation between the two.