It's been more than two years since Google acknowledged Drive spam is a real issue with the service, and we've been patiently waiting for any action to be taken. In May, the company confirmed a solution was on the way, allowing users to block email addresses from sharing content with you in the future. After a couple of months, that fix is finally being made available to Drive users.

The ability to quickly and easily share files and folders on Drive is what makes it one of the best cloud storage utilities online today, but it also attracts all sorts of spam and phishing attempts. Google's solution allows anyone to block another account by right-clicking on a shared file and selecting the "Block" option. Blocked users cannot share uploaded items with you, and Drive will hide any content previously sent to your account. It goes both ways — if you've previously shared content with your target, they'll no longer have access to those uploads.

There are a couple of limits to this new tool. You won't be able to block users from within your own domain (and if any of my editors are reading this, I wouldn't dream of it). Unfortunately, there's no way to preemptively block after you've received spam on your account, and there's nothing to stop spammers from bothering you with new email addresses. Thankfully, blocking does limit users from interacting with you through other apps and services.

Google says this ability is on a gradual rollout schedule and may take up to 15 days to become widely available. Thankfully, it's coming to every Drive user, including Workspace, G Suite, and personal accounts.

Google Drive Developer: Google LLC
Price: Free
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