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Google is improving its spam protection measures in Drive. Like Gmail, Google Drive will soon start filtering out potentially dangerous or abusive content and automatically putting them into a new Spam folder. You can also manually mark unwanted or suspicious files as spam.
According to Google, Gmail protects users from nearly 15 billion unwanted emails every day. Its security systems can automatically detect and block more than 99.9% of spam, phishing, and malware emails. A dedicated folder keeps all such emails, while still giving you manual control over them. The company plans to bring this ability to Googe Drive as well.
Drive’s improved automatic classifiers will now redirect files suspected to be unwanted or potentially harmful to the new spam folder. Even if a shared file passes through these filters, you have the option to manually mark it as spam. When you move an unsolicited file to the spam folder, Drive will automatically unsubscribe you from it. The Drive app will not push notifications for new comments, sharing details, or anything else for the file. You will not find the file anywhere outside the spam folder either.
To mark a file as spam, you can select the “report spam” option from the context menu or drag the file into the spam folder in the left navigation panel. This ability will be available to all eligible users (more on that later) once Google rolls out the new feature. There is no admin control for organizations. Like in Gmail, files in the spam folder are automatically deleted after 30 days. In the meantime, if you feel that a file has been wrongly marked as spam, you have to option to move it out. Of course, you must do that within a month. You cannot recover files once deleted permanently.
The new Spam folder in Google Drive will be available later this month
Google will roll out the new Spam folder in Drive to users later this month. The rollout will begin on May 24 for users on both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains. It may take a couple of weeks for the new feature to reach everyone globally, though. The company says all Google Workspace customers, legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers, and users with personal Google Accounts will find the Spam folder in the left navigation panel of Google Drive’s homepage. It will be available on mobile apps, Drive for Desktop, and on the web.