Google may have a hit on its hands with the Google Files app. According to the company, a hefty 100 million people use the Files app every month — and in celebration, the company has launched an update to the app with a few handy new features.
Notably, Google is making it easier to play back files offline in the Files app. For example, the app now has media controls like skip, rewind, and fast-forward to play back media that’s stored on your device. The feature is sure to be helpful for those who prefer to play individual files from their device rather than using music and video streaming services.
Perhaps even more handy for the Files app’s wider audience is the addition of a dark mode, which offers an all-black theme. The new feature isn’t all that surprising — Google has been adding a dark mode to all of its stock apps, not to mention the fact that there’s a systemwide dark mode in Android Q, the next version of Android.
Dark mode can be pretty helpful, and not just because it arguably looks a lot cooler. That’s because of how phones with OLED displays work. While LCD displays have to light up an entire display, OLED displays light up pixels individually — so when there’s a lot of black on the screen, fewer pixels have to be lit up, and the device can save on battery. Not only that, but screens with darker colors can help prevent eye strain — an epidemic in the age of screens.
As mentioned, the Files app has grown a ton since it first launched. According to Google, the app frees up a whopping 8GB of space every second, globally, which is the equivalent of 2,200 photos.
The Google Files app was originally launched in 2017 under the name Files Go, and was largely aimed at helping users free up space on their device and quickly and easily share files. Since then, the app has morphed into a much more functional file navigation app for Android, and for many has even replaced third-party file browser apps that were once far more popular on Android.
