Have you ever downloaded a file or taken a screenshot on your Chromebook? In most cases, it’s likely that you want to do something with the file or screenshot. Well, Chrome OS has a cool experimental feature that makes it easier to work with screenshots and downloaded files. It’s called storage space and provides quick access to your recent files on your Chromebook. So here’s how to enable storage space in Chrome OS and how to use it.
How to Enable Storage Space in Chrome OS
As this is an experimental feature, it is not enabled by default on your Chromebook. You’ll need to use a Chrome flag to enable this feature, here’s what to do.
- Go to chrome://flags/ in Chrome.
- Search for a storage space in the search bar at the top.
- Click the drop-down list and select “Enabled” to enable the feature.
- Now restart your Chromebook by clicking (or tapping) the restart button at the bottom right of the screen.
How to Use Storage Space in Chrome OS
So now that you’ve enabled storage space, let’s take a look at how to actually access storage space on your Chromebook and how to use it.
How to access the waiting area
Once you’ve enabled Hold Space, you’ll see a new icon in the taskbar, to the left of the time and battery icons. This is the icon for holding space. You can click (or tap) it to open the waiting area and see recent downloads and screenshots.
How to pin items in the waiting area
When you hover over an item in the waiting area, you’ll see a thumbtack icon in the corner. Simply click this icon to pin the item to the “Pinned Items” section above the storage space.
This way, you can ensure that important items aren’t overwritten in storage by newer screenshots or downloads.
Why is holding space useful?
Conserving space is useful for many reasons. Primarily, in my case, I use it to quickly access downloaded files and screenshots without having to open the Files app on my Chromebook.
Another cool feature that Storage Space brings is the ability to directly drag and drop files from Storage Space to other apps. This makes it very easy to drag and drop screenshots into Quip emails and documents. It’s also great if you want to easily open a screenshot in photo editing software.
Use storage space in Chrome OS
This is how you can enable storage space in Chrome OS. The feature has been in development for a while, but only appeared in the stable version of Chrome OS with Chrome OS 87. Since it’s still behind a flag, Google is likely working on making the feature even better before releasing it. in Chrome OS by default. However, as mentioned above, space conservation is a very useful Chrome OS feature that you should start taking advantage of now.
So, are you using storage space on your Chromebook? What do you use it for most often? Let us know in the comments.
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