Google Drive is a great place to store all your files, but sometimes you need to rename a file in Google Drive.
Maybe you originally made a typo in the name, or maybe you want to rename a lot of your files to get everything super organized, but whatever the reason, if you want to learn how to rename a file in Google Drive, you’ve come to the right place.
Prefer to watch a video about how to rename a file in Google Drive? Click here.
How To Rename A Google Drive File
To rename a file in Google Drive, the first thing you’ll need to do is single click on the file so that it’s highlighted. (You don’t want to double click on it because that would open it, you just want to click on it once to select it).
Now, once the file is selected, click on the three dots near the top right hand corner of the screen.
Then, in the menu that appears, click “Rename”.
Now, a box will pop up and you’ll just need to type whatever you want the new name of the file to be.
The original name of the file will be highlighted, so if you want to change the name to something entirely different, you can just type the new name and the original name will disappear.
But if you just want to fix a spelling mistake in the original name or something like that, you can click the cursor into the part you want to change so that you don’t have to retype the entire thing.
Whatever you do, just make sure you keep the file extension at the end of the name (eg: .jpg, .png, .pdf, etc).
Without this file extension on the end, Google Drive won’t understand what file it is and it will cause problems.
But, once you’ve entered the new name for your file, you can simply go ahead and click the “OK” button, and your file will be renamed!
And that’s all there is to it! Your file now has a new name!
But it’s worth keeping in mind that your file will quite likely move after you’ve renamed it. I have my Google Drive set to sort files by “Last modified”, so for me the file has jumped up to the top because when I renamed it I modified it.
So if you have your Google Drive set to sort by “Last modified”, the same thing should also happen for you.
But, if your Google Drive is set to sort by alphabetical order, and the starting letters of the file’s name have now changed, it may jump up or down when you rename it so that all your files are still in alphabetical order.
An Alternative Method
So that’s all good, but if you find yourself renaming files all the time, having to select the file, and then click on the three dots can start to get a little tedious.
So if you prefer, you can actually right click on the file you want to rename. And then, in the right click menu that appears, simply click “Rename”.
Then, the rename box will appear on the screen just like with the other method.
So, as you can see, it’s not a hugely different method, but some people might find it slightly quicker or easier.
And that’s all there is to it! You now know two different methods of renaming a file in Google Drive.
