Google vs Files
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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.
- 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
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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.
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.
- 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
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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
Verdict
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
Both are free to download. Google sells 22 in-app purchases, starting at $0.89 per month. Files asks for nothing beyond the download.
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.
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.
| Parameter | Files | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (5.2M ratings) — better | 2.9 (7.4K ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 59.2% of reviews — better | 14.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 5.2M — better | 7.4K |
| Update frequency | Every 6 days — better | Every 8 months |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Best chart rank | #1 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Vision Pro — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 | 11.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 512 MB | 5 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Apple Inc. | |
Customer experience
Files
User reviews
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 ratingsWhat 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
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
- 30 GB$0.891 Month
- 100 GB$1.991 Month
- 100 GB1 Month trial3 variants$1.991 Month
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- 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
Files
No in-app purchases









