How to create templates in Google Drive Template Gallery

One of the most underutilized features in Google Drive is its Template Gallery.

The Google Drive Template Gallery allows you to create and organize templates for Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms. Before I found this feature, I was low-key stressing about all of my template docs because they were so easily modified. Because there’s always the off chance that you (or someone on your team) use the template rather than duplicating it, making it so you lose your template.

An important note before you dive in:

Before you get too excited about this feature, make sure you can utilize it, as it’s unfortunately not available to every type of account. As of today (September 1, 2024), these are the account types that allow you to create templates in the Template Gallery:

Business Standard and Business Plus
Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus
Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, Teaching and Learning Upgrade, and Education Plus
Enterprise Essentials Plus
Nonprofits
G Suite Basic and G Suite Business

Why create templates in the Google Drive Template Gallery

If you already have “template” docs, why should you bother creating templates that are stored in the Template Gallery?

There are a few reasons you’ll want to set up “real” templates instead of just duplicating the “Template” doc every time.

First off, if you set up a template and put it in the Template Gallery, you (or your team) won’t be able to mess up or break the original template. The only time you can do that is if you go into the original template doc and edit it.

Second, it makes it incredibly easy for everyone to access. To make a new doc, you’ll go to + New, pick a doc, spreadsheet, slide, or form, and then click “from template”. Find your template and get started.

Third, you no longer need to hunt for the folder you saved the template in, duplicate it, rename it, and then move it. All in hopes that you didn’t just accidentally edit and move the original…

How to create templates for your Template Gallery

It’s easy to create docs, spreadsheets, slides, and forms that you’ll save in the Google Drive Template Gallery

This is probably the easiest part of setting up your templates. Because you probably already have a bunch of docs that you’re using as “templates”.

My recommendation when it comes to creating templates is to have a primary folder you’re going to store them in. This is going to make it easier down the road when you want to update your templates or create new ones.

I suggest checking out this blog post on organizing your folders if you’re feeling a bit all over the place when it comes to how your Google Drive (or even Dropbox) is looking.

Once you’ve created your master template home, decide if you’re going to break down the folders into more organized folders. For example, do you want to organize them by category? If so, you can match those categories to the ones you’ll create in the Template Gallery.

Another piece of advice? Set up a standard naming convention for your docs. Make them easily searchable but also short as you’ll only be able to automatically see a short part of the doc title in the Template Gallery.

Some examples:

[TEMPLATE] Discovery Call | Client Name | Company
Discovery Call | Client Name | Company [TEMPLATE]

In both examples I’ve included “Template” to help you know that this is the template doc, but also so that you can quickly search for it.

How to set up Google Drive Template Gallery categories

Let’s dive into actually setting up your Template Gallery categories. As a note, this isn’t a requirement for using the Template Gallery, but it will make it easier for you to find templates especially if you have a larger number of them.

Adding or deleting Template Gallery categories

Go to Admin.google.com
On the left side of your browser, click on Apps
In the menu that drops down, scroll until you reach Drive and Docs
In the main part of your browser, scroll until you find Templates
Hover over Template Gallery Settings and click on the edit/pencil icon
Make sure that “Enable custom templates for your organization” is checked. This will allow your team to access the Template Gallery
Time to add your categories! Click on “Add a new category” to create a category name, then click Add to add it
While you can’t rename default categories, you can delete them if they’re not relevant to your business
Once you’re done adding categories, scroll down and click save

Example categories

If you have a lot of docs that need to be categorized, you can split some of them up or bundle them. For example, onboarding and offboarding could be combined.

Onboarding
Offboarding
Marketing
Lead
Notes / Agenda
Service-specific (ie. website, branding, blogging)

Adding docs to your Google Drive Template Gallery

How to add docs, spreadsheets, slides, and forms to the Template Gallery

Once you’ve setup the doc you want to add to your Template Gallery, follow these steps:

Go to File > New > From Template Gallery
On the top right, click “Submit Template”
Click “Select a Document”
Find the doc you want to add to the Template Gallery, click “Open”
Keep “Submit a copy of this file instead of the original” unchecked, unless the doc you’re submitting is one you want to turn into a Template after you add it to the Gallery (ie. it’s a doc you want to clean up and use as a template)
Choose the Category it’ll be stored under
Click “Submit”

How to change the category of a template in the Template Gallery

If at some point you want to change the category your template is under in the Template Gallery, it’s a pretty quick process. Follow one of the links below to get directly to the Template Gallery page, and click the “Template Gallery” dropdown at the top.

From here, find the doc you want to update the category for, click the 3 dots, then “Update Info”. Choose the new Category and click “Save”.

Editing docs in your Google Drive Template Gallery

How to edit the original template stored in the Template Gallery

The easiest way to do this is to go to the Master Template folder you created to store all of your templates for the Template Gallery. When you open any doc, you’ll see a grey bubble next to the doc title, “In Template Gallery” to show that this doc is in your Template Gallery and is the doc you’ll want to edit.

Screenshot of a Google Doc with the "In Template Gallery" notification

Or, you can go to the following links, click on “Template Gallery” dropdown to be directed to show only the docs in your Template Gallery. From here, you can click on the 3 dots next to any doc, and click edit.

How to remove docs, spreadsheets, slides, and forms to the Template Gallery without deleting the original template

Similar to editing the docs, you can go to the respective Template Gallery (linked above), find the template doc you wish to remove from the Gallery, and click “Remove From Gallery”. This will then remove the template from the Gallery, but will keep the doc intact wherever it was originally stored.

Wrapping it up

While using the Google Drive Template Gallery isn’t required (obviously), it is incredibly easy and helps make your templates, actual Templates. If you want to learn more about Google Drive Template Gallery, check out their support article here.

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