Google Drive Gets Backups Tab on Web and Android, Gives Access to App and Device Backups

Google Drive has been backing up and restoring data for several devices, as well as apps and games in Android smartphones, for years, but it was difficult to access these backups, as these were mostly hidden in the vortexes of cloud storage. Now, Google has introduced a dedicated tab for Backups right on the home screen for users to tweak and delete backups of desired apps when necessary.

Android Police first spotted that the Backups tab is showing up for the Web client for some users, and then, became accessible via the Google Drive Android app (update to latest version 2.4.452.14). In the app as well as the browser, the Backups tab is now visible in the side menu at the bottom. Clicking on this tab reveals all the smartphones, apps and games that have been backed up. Each individual app and game backup can then be turned off or deleted as per the user's discretion.

It's important to note that not all users have received this feature, and it could be that Google is rolling it out in phases. For those who don't have it, can see which apps are using how much storage by heading to drive.google.com >Settings > Manage Apps. In the Android app changelog, Google writes, "Stay on top of what apps and Android devices are safely backed up to Drive thanks to the new Backups view."

In an update in September, Google improved its Drive to make searching a lot easier. The update brought support for Natural Language Processing (NLP) which means users could search for files in Google Docs with natural, conversational language syntax. The second feature introduced was the 'Did you mean' search suggestions that essentially autocorrected typos in queries. Drive's new feature enabled typo corrections to misspelled search terms.