How to Use Google Drive’s New “View History” Feature
If you are using Google Docs (or Sheets or Slides), you may have noticed a recent pop-up saying “Editors can now see you viewing history.” Without any context, the message is a little confusing – even confusing if you’re paranoid – but nothing to worry about here. Here’s what you need to know about the newest feature coming to Google Drive .
Viewing history significantly expands the Google Drive feature that you’re probably already familiar with: change tracking. Whereas before you could see every time someone edited or left a comment on a shared document, now you will know every time they view a file. The new setting will be available through the Action Pane, where you can see who viewed each file and when.
There are several situations in which the new Activity Dashboard can be especially useful. Let’s say you’re working on a project with several other people. You will know who has seen your latest updates, and if anyone else needs to see them, you can let them know. You can also tailor the presentation for your boss or potential client, depending on whether they actually viewed the document you sent in.
On the other hand, if you’re uncomfortable with your boss or coworkers monitoring your activities, Google also makes it easy to disable the new feature. To stop viewing history for a single file, simply open the document, click Tools, and select Privacy in the Action Bar. Then turn off “Show my history for this document”.
If you’d rather turn off this feature entirely, start Documents, Sheets or Slides on your computer and open Settings. Then find the activity bar and turn off the “Show browsing history” option.
If you don’t see these options, it probably means that Google has not yet activated browsing history for your account. The company says the feature won’t launch until you see the pop-up, which started rolling out gradually to the public late last month . So until the update hits your account, you have nothing to worry about.