Posted by Clay Bavor, Director of Product Management, Google Apps
Life gets a bit easier when your Google Apps products work well together — whether that’s inserting a Drive file into an email or sharing Docs and photos from Drive on Google+. As that experience becomes seamless, having separate storage doesn’t make as much sense anymore. So over the coming weeks, you’ll get 30 GB of unified storage to use as you like between Drive and Gmail. Just as before, files created in Docs, Sheets and Slides don’t count against your storage quota. Storage will also be shared with photos you upload to Google+ larger than 2048px.
With this new combined storage, you can use your storage how you need to. If your business or school is like most, you know how many important emails and attachments you receive every day. As a result of today’s storage change, Gmail inboxes for Google Apps customers are no longer limited to 25 GB — any additional storage you purchase can be shared and used by Gmail. Or alternatively, if you’re only using a few gigabytes of email storage, but have a lot of large documents and files stored in Google Drive, you can now use your storage primarily for Drive.
If you want to know how you are using your storage, check out our recently updated Google Drive storage page. Simply hover over the pie chart to see a breakdown of how your storage is being used across Google Drive, Gmail, and Google+ Photos.
This update will roll out to Rapid Release domains over the coming weeks.
It may sound obvious, but sometimes the best way to find something is to start looking. Beginning today, Google Drive will let you quickly preview more than 30 file types and quickly flip between files until you find the one you want.
You’ll see the new preview automatically if you open a photo, video, or PDF. To see a preview of a Google document, right-click on the file name and select “preview.” Once the preview window is open, you can click on the arrows on either side to flip to other files. And right from within the preview, you can watch video files or scroll through multi-page documents.
You can select and copy text from the preview — even for a PDF or Microsoft Word document — or use the zoom buttons to see a file in more detail. Each file preview also gives you one-click access to share, download, print or open a file for editing.
This feature will roll out over the next few days to Rapid Release customers.
Forms let you easily create questionnaires and automatically collect responses in a spreadsheet. Today a new version launches, rebuilt to bring you a faster, cleaner, and more collaborative experience.
Now with collaboration
Create a form faster than ever. Just as with Docs, Sheets and Slides, you can now collaborate with others in real-time. If you need to work with two colleagues on a survey, all three of you can work on the same form simultaneously and even have a group chat on the side, without leaving the form.
Better editing
Even if you’re working solo, some new changes will make creating and editing forms easier. All your changes are auto-saved and you can quickly undo/redo edits. Improved copy-and-paste will let you copy a list of bullets from the web or multiple rows of text from a spreadsheet; then, when you paste into a form, each line will be appear as an individual answer. And you can use keyboard shortcuts to get things done more quickly.
Some things unchanged
With the new Forms editor, you can continue using all the features you’re already familiar with:
Scale: Whether you’re collecting responses from ten friends for a baby shower or ten thousand attendees at a conference, you can count on Forms to reliably collect data for any number of responses.
Analyzing: See the responses you’ve received right in Google Forms or collect them neatly in Google Sheets. And you can now download a .csv file for more detailed analysis and reporting.
Sharing: If you share a form directly in Google+, anyone in your circles can respond without leaving their stream. Or if you send a form via email, respondents can submit their answers right from Gmail.
This update to Forms will be rolling out to Rapid Release over the next few days, and to Scheduled Release in the coming weeks. You can create forms directly from Google Sheets or Drive, or install the Chrome Web App for easy access from your browser. Also check theGoogle Drive +page all week for tips and tricks.
We’re always trying to make Gmail faster and easier to use, so today we’re introducing a completely redesigned compose and reply experience that does just that.
Faster
How many times have you been writing an email and had to reference something in another message? Saving a draft, opening the old email, and then reopening your draft wastes valuable minutes. The new compose pops up in a window, just like chats (only larger).
This makes it easy to reference any other emails without ever having to close your draft. You can even do a search or keep an eye on new mail as it comes in. And because the compose window works the same way as chats, you can write multiple messages at once and minimize a message to finish it later.
Easier to use
The new compose is designed to let you focus on what’s important: your message. The controls are still there when you need them but get out of the way when you don’t. We’ve even added some new features like the ability to easily insert inline images and have more to come.
And, when you add recipients to your message, you’ll see profile pictures of your contacts in autocomplete helping you find the right person faster. You can also drag and drop the new address chips between to:, cc: and bcc:. When you’re done adding recipients, the address area collapses automatically to get out of your way.
You’ll also see these same changes when you respond to a message. The reply experience has been designed to fit better inline as part of your conversation — replies take up much less vertical height, intelligently expand to fit your content, and always keep the recipients and other controls in view no matter how long your message gets.
We’re rolling out a preview of the new compose and reply today. After we’ve added some finishing touches over the coming months, we’ll enable it for everyone.
Google Apps Customers now have the ability to sync their Google Contacts using CardDAV. CardDAV is an open protocol for contacts that enables 3rd party clients, like the iOS contacts app, to sync Google contacts.
Editions included:
Google Apps for Business, Government and Education
We have now launched a preview of Google+ premium features in the administrator control
panel. Admins can setup default restrictions that will allow users in the domain to freely
exchange ideas and share information while keeping company information private.
Post Restrictions: Admins can set all new posts to be restricted within the domain by
default. Unless a user deliberately chooses to remove this restriction on a post, it cannot
ever be reshared outside the domain by anyone. External users cannot be added via
comments either. Note that a restricted post will always remain restricted. A post can only
be made public when it is first created.
Restricted Hangouts: When this feature is turned on, external users will only be able to join
a Hangout to which they are explicitly invited to. Everyone in the domain will always be
able to join any Hangout as long as they have the URL. Note that this is a default. Users can
always make Hangouts public.
Editions included:
Google Apps for Business, Government and Education
1:1 Video chat in Gmail has been upgraded and is now powered by Google+ Hangouts. If both sides have created a Google+ profile you will get the full Hangouts experience including the ability to add up to nine other people to the conversation, screen sharing and integrated Google Docs collaboration.
Release track:
Rapid
Editions included:
Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Government and Education
Since the introduction of Gmail video chat back in 2008, many of you have told us that you love the direct, personal communication it provides. That’s why we’re excited to announce that video chat is being upgraded to a more modern video calling technology — Google+ Hangouts.
Unlike the old video chat, which was based on peer-to-peer technology, Hangouts utilize the power of Google’s network to deliver higher reliability and enhanced quality. You’ll be able to chat with all the same people you did before and, in fact, with Hangouts you’ll now be able to reach them not only when they are using Gmail but also if they are on Google+ in the browser or on their Android or iOS devices.
All Gmail users will benefit from this upgrade, but if you and the person you’re chatting with also use Google+, you’ll get even more from the Hangouts experience. You’ll be able to video chat with up to nine people at once, watch YouTube videos together, collaborate on Google documents and share your screen. Plus, Hangouts has a bunch of fun effects that you can try out…because any conversation is better when you’re wearing a virtual mustache or pirate hat.
We’ll be rolling out Hangouts in Gmail starting today and then gradually over the coming weeks. We hope you enjoy hanging out with your friends and family. Arrrgh!
Do you want to continue editing your important documents on a flight without wifi? Now you can! We have launched one of the most requested features. Users now have the ability to edit documents and leave comments offline. You must be running the latest version of Chrome or ChromeOS and install the Google Drive Chrome app to edit offline.
Editions included:
Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Government and Education
A native Google Drive app for iOS devices (iOS 5.0+) is now available for download in the iTunes App Store. This app allows you to open all files stored in your Drive.
Editions included:
Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Government and Education
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