Google Drive app will no longer support Windows 8 and 8.1 — it might be time to upgrade

It just might be time to finally make that upgrade from Windows 8 and 8.1, as the Google Drive app will no longer support them as of August 2023. 

The news comes from a Google support page, reported by Android Police. The tech giant will be ending support for both the 8 and 8.1 OS, as well as Windows 10 32-bit version. After August, users will not be able to use the cloud storage app to sync or upload files through the app and will need to upgrade to a newer OS to continue to use those features.

The good news is that you can still use Google Drive through your browser if you’re using an older OS. But the bad news, according to The Verge, is that browser support is ending for Windows 8 and 8.1 with Microsoft Edge ending support in January 2023, Google Chrome releasing the first version that doesn’t support them in February 2023, and Mozilla Firefox planning to end security support for Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 next year.

Not to mention the issue of auto-syncing files, which is a feature only available through the Drive app. For that only you’ll need to make the jump to either Windows 10 64-bit version or Windows 11.

Google Drive has been pushing out solid updates

Google Drive has been improving its services in 2023, making the application much easier to use and navigate. This is on top of its new Material You redesign, which cleaned up its UI and completely changed the aesthetics.

In May 2023, Google redesigned the Drive homepage, making it easier to find files. In the ‘Home’ view, two view buttons at the top of the page allow users to alternate between a ‘Suggested’ and ‘Activity’ view. Earlier that same month, Google added a new Spam folder. Moving a file there unsubscribes you from activity notifications and removes the file from all other Drive locations.

February 2023 brought along two updates. The first one introduced a new toolbar for multi-selecting files that made it clearer and easier to make bulk changes, while the second one added new search parameters to help users narrow down their results.

There was the brief file limit update that Google rolled out to a small number of Drive users, before removing it in response to negative publicity. The limit of 5 million items is a large one that most people won’t hit, but the sudden error message with no advanced warning of the rollout was probably quite alarming to see anyway.