Comparison

Google vs Files

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Google

This app provides a comprehensive search experience, integrating AI for quick answers and personalized content. It allows you to search using images, voice, or text, and offers features like song identification and real-time translation.

Highlights
  • AI Overviews for quick answers
  • Image search with Lens
  • Hum to Search for song identification
  • Personalized Discover feed
  • Real-time camera translation
  • Home screen search widget
Features
Read full description

Download the Google app to find quick answers, explore your interests, and ask anything on your mind in any way. Try AI in Google Search with AI Mode, Lens, Search Live, and more. Feature highlights*: • AI Mode: Get AI-powered responses to your toughest questions with AI Mode–talk, type, or snap a photo to get started, and ask follow-up questions to dig deeper. You’ll continue to see a range of helpful links so you can keep exploring across the web. • Google Lens: See something you like? Snap a photo and discover where to shop for it, find related images, and more. Refine your camera searches by adding words – whether you want those shoes but in ‘blue’, or want to learn how to ‘repair’ that broken bit on your bicycle. • Search Live: Have a live, real-time conversation in Search by using your voice and camera to easily get answers and on-screen links to the web when you need them. • AI Overviews: Get a snapshot of key information about a topic or question, like ’how to fix a broken zipper’, with links so you can easily explore more on the web. • Hum to Search: Can't remember the name of that song? Hum the tune and Google will help find it for you—no lyrics, artist name or perfect pitch required. You can also search for a song playing near you. • Discover: Stay up-to-date on topics that matter to you. Get personalized news, articles, and videos based on your interests. • Google Search Widget: Search faster from your home screen or lock screen, with easy shortcuts to AI Mode, Lens, and more. Google Search, totally reimagined with AI • Explore a new intelligent Search box that expands with your curiosity, offers AI powered suggestions and lets you search with text, videos and more. • Bring your toughest questions to Search. With a more seamless Search experience, you can go from an AI Overview on the search results page to asking follow-up questions in AI Mode, with links to the web. • Get help with planning, researching, brainstorming new ideas, and more with the latest Gemini models delivering frontier performance for agents and coding. • Bring your ideas to life by transforming your photos in Lens or creating images in AI Mode with Nano Banana. Available in select languages and locations. Search what you see with Google Lens: • Use your camera to identify what you’re looking at. Identify plants and animals, translate text in real-time, find similar products to buy, and even solve math problems with step-by-step guides. • Translate over 100 languages on things like road signs when you travel, menus, and more by pointing your camera at text. • Reverse image search: Find the source, similar photos, and related information for any image. • Get step-by-step homework help on math, physics and word problems, and testing your knowledge with Questions and Answers are now fully supported within the Google app. Search safely and securely: • All searches in the Google app are protected by encrypting the connection between your device and Google. • Privacy controls are easy to find and use. Tap your profile picture to access your menu and delete recent search history from your account with one click. • Search proactively filters webspam to help ensure that you see safe, high-quality results. Learn more about what the Google app can do for you: https://search.google/ Privacy policy: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy Your feedback helps us create products you'll love. Join a user research study here: https://goo.gl/kKQn99 *Features may not be available in all countries.

About

Files

Manage files from your device, cloud storage, or external drives in one place. Organize with tags, search, and access recent documents easily. Share files and connect to network drives.

Highlights
  • Access files from device, cloud, and external drives
  • Recents view with high-resolution thumbnails
  • Organize files with tags
  • Search and navigate folders
  • Connect to cloud services (Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.)
  • Connect to file servers (SMB)
  • Pin favorite folders
Read full description

Access and organize your files no matter where they’re located — on your device, in the cloud, on an external drive or file server— with Files. The Recents view displays the files you’ve been working on lately in high-resolution thumbnails. Use the powerful Browse view to navigate folders, organize your files with tags, move files between folders, and search. Files also makes it easy to access iCloud Drive and third-party cloud storage services such as Dropbox, Box, and OneDrive. Features • Press the Files icon in the Dock or Home screen to quickly open a file from anywhere • Connect an external drive or SD card to your device to access the files • Connect to a file server at work or a home PC using SMB from Files • Use tags to organize files stored with different cloud providers and across different apps. • Pin your favorite folders in Browse view for quick access to the ones you use most. • Give people access to any file stored in iCloud Drive by sharing a link from the Files app • Drag and drop to select files and organize them into folders

Screenshots

Google4 screens
Files3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: Google at 59% against Files's 14%. Google also leads on rating (4.6 vs 2.9) and update cadence (every 6 days vs every 8 months). Files's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 37) and ads (none vs shown). On price there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Google sells 22 in-app purchases, starting at $0.89 per month. Files asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Google holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 2.9. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Google has 5.2M ratings behind it against 7.4K, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 59% of Google's written reviews are positive against 14% of Files's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Google ships an update every 6 days, Files every 8 months. The most recent releases landed on October 14, 2026 and October 13, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard10 real differences · 1 level
Google versus Files: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterGoogleFiles
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.6 (5.2M ratings) — better2.9 (7.4K ratings)
Positive reviews59.2% of reviews — better14.0% of reviews
Number of ratings5.2M — better7.4K
Update frequencyEvery 6 days — betterEvery 8 months
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
Best chart rank#1 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod, Vision Pro — better
Requires iOS16.011.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size512 MB5 MB
Age rating17+4+
DeveloperGoogleApple Inc.

Customer experience

Google

All ratings5,204,670 ratings
Positive91.3%
Neutral2.9%
Negative5.8%
Written reviews11,004 reviews
Positive59.2%
Neutral5.7%
Negative35.1%

Files

All ratings7,425 ratings
Positive41.8%
Neutral9.1%
Negative49.1%
Written reviews2,534 reviews
Positive14.0%
Neutral10.1%
Negative76.0%

User reviews

Google

From 5.2M App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Reliable and feature-packed
  • 👍 Seamless integration with other Google services
  • 🔍 Accurate and personalized search results
  • 📱 Intuitive and smooth interface
  • 🔍 Helpful Google Assistant

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Occasional bugs and glitches
  • 🔍 Biased or irrelevant search results
  • 📱 Slow performance and freezing issues
  • 🔍 Forced use of Google Lens
  • 🔍 Difficulty removing unwanted content from feed

Files

From 7.4K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Easy to use
  • 🚀 Smooth performance
  • 💡 Useful for storing and organizing files
  • 🔒 Secure file storage

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Frequent crashes
  • 🐛 Files disappearing or not saving properly
  • 🐛 Unreliable sync with cloud services
  • 🐛 Limited functionality compared to desktop file managers
  • 🐛 Buggy PDF annotation and editing

Bugs and requests

Google

Reported bugs

5 issues
  • Search bar freezes or takes a long time to load
  • Tabs disappearing or not saving properly
  • Inability to save images or access image search
  • Crashing or force closing issues
  • Inconsistent dark mode/light mode behavior

Requested features

5 requests
  • Option to disable Google Lens
  • Improved tab management
  • Ability to customize news feed interests
  • Restore image download functionality
  • Dedicated search mode for trucks and larger vehicles

Files

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Files app not showing any files after iOS 15 update
  • Inability to delete downloaded files
  • Keyboard glitches when editing documents
  • Inconsistent behavior when transferring files to external storage

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add ability to view file extensions
  • Improve search functionality
  • Allow more customization of the interface
  • Integrate better with other Apple apps and services
  • Add support for more cloud storage providers

In-app purchases

22 purchases

Google

Subscriptions22
  • 30 GB$0.891 Month
  • 100 GB$1.991 Month
  • 100 GB1 Month trial3 variants$1.991 Month
Show 19 more
  • 100 GB3 Months trial$1.991 Month
  • 200 GB$2.991 Month
  • 200 GB1 Month trial3 variants$2.991 Month
  • Google AI Plus (400 GB)$4.991 Month
  • Google AI Plus (400 GB)1 Month trial$4.991 Month
  • Google AI Plus (2 TB)$9.991 Month
  • 2 TB1 Month trial3 variants$9.991 Month
  • 100 GB$19.991 Year
  • Google AI Pro (5 TB)1 Month trial2 variants$19.991 Month
  • Google AI Pro (5 TB)$19.991 Month
  • Google AI Pro (2 TB)$19.991 Month
  • 5 TB2 variants$24.991 Month
  • 200 GB$29.991 Year
  • 200 GB1 Year trial$29.991 Year
  • Google AI Plus (400 GB)$49.991 Year
  • 10 TB$49.991 Month
  • Google AI Plus (2 TB)$99.991 Year
  • 30 TB$149.991 Month
  • 5 TB$249.991 Year
None

Files

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Google free?
Google is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Files free?
Files is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Google or Files?
Google is rated higher. Google averages 4.6 out of 5 from 5.2M ratings, while Files averages 2.9 from 7.4K ratings.
Do Google or Files have ads?
Google shows ads; Files does not.
Which is updated more often, Google or Files?
Google ships an update every 6 days, and Files every 8 months. Most recently, Google was updated on October 14, 2026 and Files on October 13, 2026.

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