Google Drive timestamped comments on videos: web vs. mobile
Google Drive now supports timestamped comments on videos, letting reviewers pin feedback to the exact frame it applies to instead of writing a note and hoping the recipient finds the right spot in the timeline, according to Digital Trends and The Verge. The feature is live now for Google Workspace accounts, Workspace Individual subscriptions, and personal Google accounts, and it arrives switched on by default, according to ThreeVector.
There's a catch. Creating a timestamped comment only works on the web. Open the same video on a phone, and the note shows up as a plain file-level comment, no marker, no moment attached, according to Google's own announcement, cited by The Verge.
Until now, feedback on a Drive video lived entirely at the file level. Picture a reviewer writing something like "the logo animation looks off around the 1:42 mark," then leaving whoever reads it to scrub back and forth guessing where that actually falls. That's the hassle Digital Trends says the update was built to fix. Timestamped comments swap that guesswork for a marker anyone can click.
How timestamped comments in Google Drive work
While watching a video inside Drive, a split button next to the comment box offers a choice: a standard file-level comment, or one tied to the exact second currently playing, according to Digital Trends and ThreeVector.
Pick the timestamped option, and Drive drops a small marker onto the video's timeline at that point, not unlike a chapter marker on a YouTube scrubber. Anyone who opens the file afterward can click that marker, jump straight to the second in question, and watch the comment surface automatically, according to Digital Trends and ThreeVector.
That design kills a specific annoyance: dragging a scrubber back and forth trying to match a written description to the right moment, Digital Trends notes. Being able to comment on a specific time in a Google Drive video, instead of describing it after the fact and hoping the description lands, is the whole point of the update.
Google Drive video review feedback keeps familiar Workspace tools
The comments inherit the rest of Workspace's commenting toolkit. Replying, editing, resolving, and tagging a colleague with an @ mention all work the same way they already do everywhere else in Workspace, according to Digital Trends and ThreeVector.
Teams reviewing video have long parked timecoded notes in separate documents, chat threads, or emails, because Drive's own comments couldn't point to a specific moment before this update. ThreeVector frames the change as a way to pull that scattered feedback back into a single file rather than juggling three tabs to track one revision note.
Google's announcement, as summarized by ThreeVector, names demos, training videos, marketing content, and recorded presentations as the kinds of files this is built for. Teams producing that sort of content can now run a full review pass inside Drive itself, without exporting notes into a spreadsheet or pasting timecodes into Slack. It's a small change in mechanics that adds up to a bigger shift: Drive absorbing a workflow that used to require a separate tool entirely.
Web versus mobile: what actually changes
The split between platforms is specific enough to lay out directly:
- Web: Create timestamped comments, see the markers on the timeline, click one to jump straight to that second, according to Digital Trends and ThreeVector.
- Android and iOS: Existing timestamped comments appear as standard file-level comments rather than timeline markers, and Google's announcement doesn't describe a mobile tool for creating them, according to The Verge and ThreeVector.
A mobile reviewer can still read what a colleague wrote. They just can't see where in the video it was meant to land, or add a new note of their own from their phone. For anyone who reviews footage between meetings or on a commute, that's a real limitation, not a footnote. Google's announcement gives no timeline for when, or whether, that gap closes.
Who can use it right now
Access isn't gated behind a premium tier or an add-on purchase. Every Google Workspace customer, every Workspace Individual subscriber, and anyone with a personal Google account gets timestamped video comments in Drive, according to Digital Trends and ThreeVector.
It's already live across both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains, ThreeVector reports, so most organizations aren't waiting on the staggered rollout that sometimes accompanies Workspace changes.
There's no admin control to switch the feature on or off, and no end-user setting listed in the announcement, according to ThreeVector. It's simply on by default for everyone covered above.
That combination, immediate availability with zero configuration, means a freelancer sharing a rough cut with a client gets the same tool, on the same day, as a corporate marketing team running a formal approval chain.
Where this fits in Drive's roadmap
The web-only restriction doesn't come from a lack of mobile investment elsewhere in Drive. Google shipped a new video player experience for Android last year, according to Google Workspace Updates, and nothing in this rollout suggests that player has picked up timeline-marker support. The gap looks less like a hard technical wall and more like Google shipping the desktop half of the feature first and figuring out mobile later.
Video, more broadly, has been getting attention across Workspace this year. Google upgraded Meet to deliver higher-resolution video for users on high-end displays, particularly in meetings with three or more participants, according to Google Workspace Updates. Read next to the Drive update, it suggests Google is treating video, live or recorded, as a growing piece of how people actually use Workspace, not just a file format Drive happens to preview.
For now, the Drive update solves one problem cleanly: it tells a reviewer exactly where their feedback belongs, provided they're working from a browser. Whether that same clarity reaches a phone screen, and how soon, is a question Google's own announcement leaves open.
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