where's my Where the spreadsheet works
- Free and familiar; everyone can open it.
- Great for things only a human knows: client, purchase date, warranty.
- Fine for a handful of drives with stable contents.
Where it breaks
- It records what someone typed, not what is on the drive. The file you need was never typed in.
- Nobody updates it after the third project.
- No link to the physical drive — you still have to find which drive is “row 42”.
- Search is only as good as the row descriptions.
Side by side
| Spreadsheet | Scanned catalog | |
|---|---|---|
| File-level detail | Only what you type | Every file name |
| Stays current | Manual | Rescan when it changes |
| Link from drive to entry | Handwritten ID | QR sticker |
| Phone access | Awkward | Built in |
| Guests without accounts | Link sharing | Team PIN, read-only |
| Cost | Free | Subscription |
Keep both, if you like
Many teams keep the spreadsheet for purchase and warranty info and let the catalog handle contents. Where’s My Drive exports everything to CSV, so the two can live side by side.
Migrating from a spreadsheet without losing anything
- Keep the spreadsheet — it holds things only people know (purchase date, warranty, owner).
- Give every row a drive ID if it does not already have one, and write that ID on the physical drive.
- Scan each drive into the catalog under the same ID. Copy anything important from the row into the drive’s note.
- Replace the “contents” column in the spreadsheet with a link to the catalog — or drop it.
What people usually discover
The first scan of a “known” drive almost always turns up surprises: projects nobody listed, duplicates of other drives, folders with tens of gigabytes of cache. That alone tends to free space — and it is a good sign the spreadsheet was describing what someone hoped was on the drive, not what is.
Catalog your first drive tonight
14-day free trial, no card. Scan a drive in Chrome or Edge, print its QR sticker, and find any file on it from your phone.
Frequently asked questions
Is a spreadsheet good enough to track hard drives?
For a few drives with stable contents, yes. It breaks when you need to find individual files or when contents change often.
Can I export a drive catalog to a spreadsheet?
Yes — Where’s My Drive exports every drive, folder and file to CSV.
