Drive Shared People icon menu

Google Drive is a really easy way to allow colleagues, family or friends to share access to a set of files, but keeping track of who has what access – and changing permissions – can be a fiddly business. The company has announced in a blog post that it'll be making life much easier in future.

In the coming weeks, we will be adding a new "people icon" to shared folders, which simplifies seeing who you've shared a folder with and whether they have View, Edit, or Comment permissions. With this change, we hope to reduce the amount of clutter for users and make sharing more transparent for folder owners.

Google says the rollout will begin in a fortnight's time, but will take a few days to roll out to everyone. The company also recently added the ability to control sharing notifications on mobile devices.