Google Drive’s file viewer is getting a sleek, modern redesign for better navigation

Google Drive has long been a great place to store files, but the actual experience of viewing them on the web has often felt a bit dated. Opening a PDF or video usually meant dealing with a sparse, clunky interface that lacked useful navigation tools.

Well, that is finally changing. In a new update, Google is rolling out a “modernized” file viewing experience for Google Drive on the web, designed to make browsing through documents, videos, and images much smoother.

A better way to view PDFs and videos

This update significantly improves the interface when you open third-party file types like PDFs, videos, audio files, and images. The biggest changes are focused on navigation and utility:

• Smarter PDF Navigation: When viewing a PDF, you’ll now see a new left rail that can display a table of contents (if the file has one) and thumbnails of each page. This is a massive quality-of-life improvement for navigating large, multi-page documents without endless scrolling.
• Video Transcripts: For video files, there’s a powerful new option to search by transcript. This means you can quickly find specific parts of a video just by searching for the spoken text, saving you from scrubbing through a long clip to find what you need.
• Modern UI: The entire viewer gets a fresh coat of paint with a new file menu, toolbar, and app bar, bringing it in line with the modern Google Material Design look.

Availability

This update is rolling out now. It’s available today for Rapid Release domains and will begin a full rollout to Scheduled Release domains starting December 11, 2025.

The best part? This feature will be on by default for everyone, including Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts. So, next time you open a PDF in Drive, you should see the new, cleaner interface ready to go.