Google Drive can now search just like, you know, Google

Google is giving Drive a neat update by actually putting its search chops to work.

First off, Drive now supports natural language processing, which is a fancy way of saying you can search the way you talk. You can type in something like “find my presentations from last month” or “show me spreadsheets by Boris,” and Drive will help you find the requested files.

That said, it doesn’t seem Google will just automatically provide you the results; instead it just rephrases your query into a more specific one that will find the items you’re looking for.

Along with this is the addition of search autocorrect – in other words, that “Did you mean…” line we’re so familiar with from Google Search for when you mess up typing a name or keyword.

There are a few other tidbits in today’s update too. You can now split Docs into columns from the ‘Format’ menu, for one, and when you import a non-Docs file from another app, Google will now save the original copy in addition to the Docs conversion. Just check your revision history to access the original.

For a search company, Google can be pretty bad about implementing good search in its products (looking at you Hangouts), so this is a welcome update.

The updates are rolling out globally now. Google says it’s a gradual roll out though, so don’t be surprised if you don’t see the features right away.