Google Workspace users are getting a new feature to prevent colleagues from tampering with their documents, and users will now have the ability to lock their Google Drive files , helping reduce unwanted comments and changes when sharing with multiple team members.
Although this is not the most revolutionary feature, it can certainly be useful especially for companies that use and share a lot of publicly viewable documents.
Locking a document puts it in read-only mode, which means that viewers cannot edit it, comment on it, or leave suggestions on it. The document will remain in this read-only mode until it is unlocked by its owner. In a blog post, Google stated that this new feature " "It will simplify the process of restricting files in Drive."
Previously, you could secure a document or file when you shared it, or by calling the Google Drive API. The new locking feature simplifies things: Right-click the file you want to lock, scroll to File Info from the pop-up menu, and select Lock.
The file lock feature has already been rolled out in some express release domains and will continue for the next 15 days, and people in scheduled release domains can expect to start seeing the feature on September 20, with a similar 15-day rollout period.