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This tip is about the how To Hide Files on Google Drive. So read this free guide, How To Hide Files on Google Drive step by step. If you have query related to same article you may contact us.
How To Hide Files on Google Drive – Guide
Google Drive is one of the free cloud storage options provided to Google users. You can keep files hidden from other users on Google Cloud Storage as well as keep them there. If you’d like to share a file or folder with a third party, you can save it to the appropriate folder in Google Drive and provide access to that person or group. But what if you want to share an entire folder with a team or family, but only a few essential or confidential files inside it? One option is to place these files in an entirely separate folder. When files are systematically organized, however, this method is not possible.
The simplest way to do this is to have multiple copies of the same file without having to move it between directories. Now let’s look at how to hide a file in Google Drive in a few easy steps.
How to Hide a file in Google Drive
Google drive has a feature known as “Manage Versions”, which allows you to save multiple versions of the same file. When you upload a new version of a file, Google automatically keeps the old version of that file for a limited time. Let’s use this Google Drive feature in this workaround to hide a file from the Drive folder.
load the original file
To get started, navigate to the Google Drive folder in your browser by opening the Google Drive link. Sign in with your Google username and password if necessary. You can now send the file you want to keep secret from other members who share the same Google Drive folder or account. Once the upload is complete, you can see the file in your Google Drive folder. Once you have this file on the drive, you can prepare the second file to hide the original document.
Use temporary file to hide original
You can use any file to hide the original file. However, image files will produce more realistic thumbnails. Here, we’ll go with an image file to hide the original file you uploaded to Google Drive. Now go ahead to Google Drive and right click on the original file you uploaded and choose “Manage Versions” from the menuup menu. Select “Upload New Version” to load a new file on top of the original. Here you choose the image file you have on your system to load as New Version. There is no specific rule for uploading the image file here, you can use any file format supported by Google Drive to upload and hide the original image.
Well, by default Google Drive will show recently uploaded files at the top with a thumbnail preview. Google will now show the thumbnail of the original file with the latest version of the file you recently uploaded to the folder. When the person you shared the folder with tries to open the file, they will see the thumbnail of the image you uploaded.
rename the file
Even though the thumbnail is an image, you may notice that the file extension is still the same. In this example, Google Drive retains the old file extension every after the image file is uploaded.
Now you can change the filename and extension to the updated file extension. This is good for making an impression to the user that this file is an image file.
After uploading the new version, Google will, by default, save the previous version of the file for 30 days on its server. After 30 days, the previous version will be automatically deleted. In that case, you should keep the old version of the file forever. You can manually set the file version to keep forever.
Change file version expiration period
To continue, right click on the file and select “Manage Versions”. You will see the current and previous version of the file. Now click on the three vertical dots option and choose “Keep forever” to save the previous version of the file forever on Google’s server.
If someone tries to access the Google drive, they will see the image of the plants and will not be able to see the original version of the file unless they delve deeply into the file versions.
Access the original file
When you want to download the original file, you can easily download the previous version. Just access the file in Google Drive > right-click on the file > Go to “Manage Versions”. You can find your old file there and click download.
What happens if someone tries to double-click the file (double-click)? Well, in this case, the latest version of the file will always be opened, thus protecting your data from unauthorized use.
Final note
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