Chrome Will Soon Let You Save PDFs Directly to Google Drive From Its Built-in PDF Viewer

Google will soon allow users to save PDF documents directly to Google Drive from the PDF viewer in Chrome. The company is working on adding a “Save to Drive” button to the PDF viewer.

Currently, Google Chrome allows users to save PDFs to their devices using the Print option. Additionally, the latest iOS version of the browser now supports saving PDFs directly to Google Drive. Now, Chrome is introducing this capability within the PDF Viewer on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

The Chromium Gerrit commit we spotted states that the new option will work the same as the Download button.

“Create a new save to drive button in the PDF viewer. This button is largely the same as the existing download button, which is why it is also extending ViewerSaveControlsMixin. This new button has a component of circular progress indicator that represents the current upload percentage.” the commit message reads.

Also see: Google Pushes Chrome as Default PDF Viewer on Windows 11

Google has already added a flag to enable this feature in Chrome Canary. The “Save PDF to Drive” flag “enables the ability to save PDFs to Google Drive” on Mac, Windows, and Linux.

Currently, the flag is not working and does not show the “Save to Drive” option for PDFs in Chrome, as Google is still developing the feature.

Also see: Chrome’s PDF Viewer getting a Material 3 Design Refresh

In case you don’t know, Google’s “Save to Drive” extension allows users to save files—including PDFs—to Google Drive. However, once this new feature rolls out, users who rely on the extension for PDFs may no longer need it.