Hey everyone! I’m trying to set up a system to keep track of file changes in my Google Drive folders. I was thinking about using Google Sheets for this.
Has anyone done something similar? I’m hoping to create a spreadsheet that automatically shows the most recently updated file in each of my Drive folders. It would be awesome if it could update itself when new folders or files are added too.
Ideally, the sheet would display:
- Folder name
- Name of the last updated file in that folder
- Who made the update
- When the update happened
I’ve got a main folder with subfolders A, B, C, and D that I want to monitor. Any ideas on how to make this work? Is there a better way to do this that I’m not thinking of? Thanks for any help!
I’ve actually tackled this exact problem for my work team. Here’s what worked for us:
We set up a Google Sheet with columns for folder name, last updated file, who updated it, and timestamp. Then we used Google Apps Script to automate the process.
The script runs every hour (you can adjust this) and loops through our main folder and subfolders. It grabs the most recent file in each, along with the metadata, and updates the sheet.
One tip: Use the Drive API instead of DriveApp for better performance if you have lots of files/folders.
Also, make sure your script has the necessary permissions to access all the folders you want to track. We ran into some issues there initially.
It’s been a game-changer for our team’s file management. Let me know if you want more details on the script setup!
hey surfingwave, i did a similar project before. use google apps scripts with a trigger to loop thru your folders and auto update your sheets. it’s simple once you get the hang of it. give it a try!
I’ve implemented a similar system for my team’s shared Drive and found that Google Apps Script offers a robust solution. I began by creating a new Google Sheet and then opened the Script editor from the Tools menu. I developed a script that traverses the main folder and its subfolders using DriveApp to retrieve file metadata, and I recorded the information in the sheet with SpreadsheetApp. I also set up a time-based trigger to run the script periodically.
Handling permissions in shared folders was challenging, so ensure you have the necessary access rights and consider batch operations for better performance when managing many files.