What are Google Drive Labels?

Google Drive has introduced a new feature known as "labels," which significantly enhances how your can organize and retrieve files within their storage. This comprehensive guide explores what labels are, their benefits, and how to effectively use them as a Google Workspace admin.

What are Google Drive Labels?

Labels in Google Drive are tags that you can apply to files and folders to categorize and organize your data more flexibly than traditional folder structures. Unlike folders that restrict a file or folder to a single location, labels allow you to tag items with multiple labels, thus making them accessible from various categorizations.

Benefits of Using Labels

1. Enhanced Organization

Multi-Categorization: Apply multiple labels or use multiple fields labels to a file or folder, helping you to categorize items in various ways that make sense for your workflow.

2. Improved Searchability

Easier Retrieval: Quickly find files by searching for labels, which can be more intuitive than remembering the exact location or filename.

3. Flexible Access

Share and Collaborate: When you share a labeled file, your coworker will access the file's label as well, improving your team's organisation and coherence.

Thus, a file labeled as "Confidential" will remain so for every user of your Google Workspace Domain, and you make sure that this specificity does not get lost when sharing your file. Google Drive Labels will allow you to secure your company files more efficiently and to follow your confidentiality requirements more efficiently.

Example : In my company shared Drive, the Sales team created one folder for each of our customer, in which you can find every file that relates to them. Then, they created a "Signed Contract" folder, in which then keep a duplicate of every contract.

With Google Drive Labels, they can easily Label every contract with the customer's name and a Label named "Contract", and avoid this unnecessary copy.

How Will your End Users Benefit From Labels in Google Drive

Files or folders can have multiple labels, increasing their accessibility from different contexts.

Step 1: Add Labels to your files

They can easily add a Label to their document from their Google Drive by clicking on "More Actions" > "Labels"

They can also do so from the file's "Information tab" by clicking on the "Apply label" button :

Step 2: Search and Filter by Labels

• Use Google Drive's Advanced Search Features to search for a specific Label Value

• Customize their search and gain efficiency :

How to Create Labels as a Google Workspace Admin?

Step 1: Log into the Admin Console

• Sign in at https://admin.google.com using your administrator credentials or directly navigate to the Admin Console from Google Drive.

Step 2: Navigate to Drive Settings

• Go to Apps > Google Workspace > Drive and Docs > Labels.
• Click on "Manage Labels".

Step 3: Create and Configure Label

• Click on "New Label" and choose your Label Type.
• Here, you can personalize your Label and define how your company files will be organized.

Which Label is Right For My Domain?

When creating a Label, you have to choose from existing patterns made by Google. This section will help you get a better understanding of what they have to offer.

• Badged Label

This type of label can be used to highlight specific attributes or statuses of files or folders. This badge will be visible from the file when opened, making it easy to quickly identify the nature of the content you're working one.

• Simple Label

As the name suggests, a simple label is used for basic categorization or tagging of files and folders. It doesn’t include any additional features or options. It's typically used for straightforward organization, such as tagging documents by project name, year, or other general categories.

The main difference between a badged Label and a simple Label will be its visibility when working on the file. As you can see bellow, the label doesn't appear next to the file name, but only in the Label information panel.

• Label with Options

This type of label allows for more interactivity or customization in how content is categorized. Labels with options could include dropdown menus or checklists that let users select specific attributes or statuses for a file or folder. For example, a label could allow users to mark a document's progress as "In Progress", "Completed", or "On Hold", or to link a document to a specific project.

• Label with Multiple Fields

This label type is useful for more detailed and structured categorization. It can include multiple data fields within a single label, allowing users to input or select various attributes about a file. For instance, a label for a report might include fields for the "Author", "Review Date", and "Approval Status". This helps in maintaining detailed metadata for complex documentation or project management.

How to Ensure Your Google Workspace Users Apply Labels?

To maximize the benefits of labels in Google Drive, it's crucial to encourage widespread adoption and consistent usage across your organization. With the introduction of classification labels in Google Drive, admins have more control over how labels are applied and managed.

You can now automate label assignments, i.e., automatically apply labels to files based on predefined criteria or rules. This ensures consistency and reduces the manual effort required by users.

To do this, from your admin console:

• Navigate to Security > Access and Data Control > Data Classification
• In the "Drive and Docs" section, click on the blue "Select Labels" button

• Click on "ADD LABEL"

• A dropdown with all your domain labels will be displayed. Select the one you want to apply automatically to every new file created.
• OPTIONAL: If you wish, you can specify specific values for the label fields by clicking on "Add values".

• Validate your choice by clicking on the blue "Continue" button and then "Save" from the "Drive and Docs" menu.

Best Practices for Labeling

• Consistency: Keep labels consistent and meaningful across your domain for easier management. Labels should be seen as an opportunity to opt for a domain wide nomenclature and to normalize files organization between your teams, while still adapting your tools to all of their specific needs.
• Limitation: While labels are powerful, using too many on a single file can become counterproductive. Even though the number of Labels for a single Google Workspace domain is limited to 150, we recommend to aim for a balanced approach.

Conclusion

Google Drive labels offer a flexible, powerful way to organize and find content faster. By moving beyond traditional folders and harnessing the power of labels, users can improve their efficiency and productivity in managing their digital files.