For years, Drive has been an uncontrolled mess of spam for some users, and the only solution has been to use the entire service less and block it from sending emails and notifications. Gmail gets AI-powered, Google-side filters for obvious scams, a 'spam' inbox for questionable items, and advanced filter rules that anyone can write. It's like email, but while Gmail has plenty of spam controls, Drive has historically had very few. There's no way to turn off sharing, to limit sharing to approved users, or to limit it to existing contacts. Anyone can share a drive file with you if they know your address. Documents that have been shared with you still automatically show up in your Drive collection without your consent. Soon, once the spam arrives in your Google Drive, you'll be able to click the menu button next to the item and choose 'block user.' Advertisementĭrive sharing works just like email spam. Google officially acknowledged the problem back in 2019, and the company said it was making spam controls 'a priority.' Now, more than two years later, Google is finally rolling out the most basic of spam tools to Google Drive sharing-you can block individual email addresses! The company announced this feature in May, but the tool is rolling out to users over the next 15 days.

Anyone who gets a hold of your email is considered an important sharer of valid documents, and there has been nothing you can do about it-until now. The problem is that Drive document sharing was built with no spam-management tools. If you block the emails, you'll have to see the spam when you click on the 'shared' section of Google Drive. Even if you ban Google Drive from generating phone notifications, you'll still get emails. Someone shared a document containing that title, and now your phone is begging you to look at it. A notification pops up on your phone: 'Click here for hot XXX action!'

Google drive spam 2018