Google Drive for Android’s Material Theme redesign w/ new bottom bar detailed

Abner Li | Oct 5 2018 - 12:10 pm PT

Google Drive on the web was one of the first services to receive a Material Theme during I/O 2018. At Cloud Next in June, the Google Drive Material Theme for Android and iOS was detailed, and now we have a look at the redesign that’s also currently in beta for enterprise customers.

As we noted before, the Google Drive Material Theme (enabled by XDA) is notable for adopting a bottom bar with quick access to Home, Starred, Shared, and Files. A navigation drawer is still present to access Recent, Offline, Trash, Notifications, and Settings, as well as a storage remaining indicator.

For the moment, there is also a shortcut to “Return to old design.” Compared to the previous look, the primary view of the app is no longer a list of folders and files, but rather a “Home” on G Suite accounts where the machine learning-powered “Priority” and “Workspaces” is not enabled.

Large cards with full-width file previews of recently edited or opened files are leveraged here. Fortunately, a list similar to the old view is still accessible in the last “Files” tab. Across all four sections is a new search bar that incorporates a hamburger button at the left and account switcher at the right.

No longer housed in the nav drawer, users can more easily see what Drive account they are currently logged into with their profile avatar. Meanwhile, various Material Theme elements are in play, including a Google-colored FAB, stark white background, and sheets with rounded corners.

The new Google Drive for Android is a bigger revamp than most Material Theme redesigns, even the web revamp for Drive back at I/O. Like with Gmail and other G Suite applications, machine learning to increase productivity is a big focus for Google’s enterprise division.

More on Google Drive:

Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more news: