Turn new Drive changes into cited document evidence.
Timeline saves supported file changes it sees after Google Drive is connected, so later answers can cite the document state captured at the time. You can limit the connection to a shared drive; choosing My Drive currently also includes changed files the connected account can access through Shared with me and other shared drives.
Google Drive records enter a chronological Timeline and resolve into a cited answer.
Fictional Acme example, not customer data.
Question
Who owns the next Acme rollout review?
11:02migration-checklist.docx
Owner changed to Priya Shah
11:04Captured version
Friday review recorded in Timeline
14:15launch-plan.pdf
Staged beta cohort added
Chronology
Immutable events keep their source and order.
Cited answer
Priya Shah owns Friday’s Acme migration review, and the latest captured launch plan records the staged beta cohort.
Citation 1: Migration checklistCitation 2: Captured versionCitation 3: Launch plan
01/What gets captured
What Timeline keeps, and what stays in Google Drive.
Timeline captures
Timeline records supported Drive changes as cited events and saves the file state it sees during each sync, subject to the limits below.
Google Drive remains
Google Drive remains the place where files are authored, shared, organized, and permissioned. Timeline reads changed content included by the selected source; it does not replace Drive collaboration or rewrite source files.
Questions
Ask the operating question, not a search query.
01Summarize the latest partnership agreement.
02What changed between the last two launch plans?
03Which document supports the pricing decision?
04Which files changed in the client shared drive this week?
Example
Fictional Acme example, not customer data.
The answer cites the version that mattered
The Acme migration checklist changes owner and review date before a later launch plan records the staged cohort. A handoff must distinguish the states Timeline actually observed.
1
Timeline observes the changed migration checklist when Drive reconciliation processes the changes feed.
2
The supported file state becomes a Timeline document version beside its cited change event.
3
A later captured launch plan joins the chronology without erasing the earlier checklist version.
Result
The handoff names Priya Shah and Friday’s review while preserving the captured source versions.
What Timeline saves
What enters the Timeline
01
New file changes observed under an activated My Drive root after the first successful reconciliation cursor
02
New file changes observed inside activated shared drives after the first successful reconciliation cursor
03
Changed Shared with me files and accessible shared-drive files admitted when My Drive root is active
04
Drive removal tombstones with a file ID and removal time
05
File names, MIME types, modification times, owners, and source links
06
Supported changed-file content up to the ingestion limit
07
Timeline document versions created from supported file states observed at sync time
Use it with
Better when the silos meet
Conversation plus contract
Answer from the client discussion and the governing document together.
Slack+Google Drive
Plan plus checklist
Compare project movement with the latest runbook or launch plan.
Linear+Google Drive
Board plus brief
Connect operational records to the documents that define their scope.
Monday.com+Google Drive
Setup and privacy
Setup overview
01Connect Google Drive with a person-owned OAuth connection.
02Choose My Drive root or one or more shared drives that person can share.
03Have a Timeline team admin activate the shared sources.
04Let the first successful reconciliation establish the Drive changes cursor, then use the 15-minute scheduled reconciliation policy to process later changes. Timeline does not currently provision a customer-configurable Drive push channel.
Permissions and privacy
OAuth requests read-only Drive content and metadata plus openid and email. Google’s stable subject identifier anchors the provider account identity, and its primary email labels the connection.
The connection sees only files the authorizing Google account is allowed to read.
Selecting a shared drive admits live changes from that drive. Selecting My Drive root currently admits any changed file the connected account can access, including Shared with me files and files in other shared drives, even when those locations were not separately activated.
Non-owners cannot use Timeline to browse the connection owner’s unshared Drive resources.
OAuth credentials are encrypted at rest; Timeline’s own team and event visibility rules still apply after capture.
Limits
Honest limitations
Review these capture and recovery boundaries before connecting your account.
Activation only queues the first sync; it does not persist a Drive cursor. A cursor is requested when reconciliation runs and saved only as that work progresses, so capture effectively begins at the cursor used by the first successful reconciliation. Changes made between activation and that cursor can precede it and are never returned. Untouched files that already existed are not enumerated or imported.
Scheduled Drive reconciliation becomes due every 15 minutes and is evaluated by the worker’s five-minute integration tick. Without an operator-registered push channel, a supported post-cursor file change can remain absent for roughly that interval plus scheduling delay.
Versions are sync-observed snapshots, not a copy of every Drive edit. If a file changes multiple times before reconciliation, Timeline downloads the current body and may not preserve the intermediate wording.
Document-body harvest and version creation require the person who connected Drive to remain a member of the Timeline team. If that person leaves, change metadata continues to land and the Drive cursor still advances, but file bodies and versions are skipped. Reconnecting under a current member resumes future reported changes; intervening file states are not recovered unless Drive reports another change for the file.
The source picker exposes My Drive root and up to the first 100 shared drives returned by Google; the current listing does not paginate beyond that first page or offer arbitrary individual subfolders.
My Drive root is not an ancestry boundary in the current change filter. If root is active, every non-removed file in the account-wide changes feed passes before parent inspection. A changed Shared with me file or accessible shared-drive file can therefore be captured with its metadata and supported body even when it is outside the user’s My Drive and that location was not separately activated.
Drive removal tombstones do not include parent information. Timeline may therefore record a file ID and removal time for a deleted file elsewhere in the connected account, even when that area was not activated; no file body is present in that tombstone.
Files over 20 MB and unsupported Google-native formats still produce change metadata, but their bodies are not added to the document library.
Timeline does not ingest Drive comments or Activity history, edit files, change sharing settings, or replace Google Docs collaboration.
FAQ
Questions, answered
Which Google Drive sources can I activate?+
The current source picker offers My Drive root and up to the first 100 shared drives returned for the connection owner. It does not paginate further or offer arbitrary individual subfolders. A shared-drive-only selection scopes live files to that drive, but selecting My Drive root currently admits changed files anywhere the account can access, including Shared with me and other shared drives.
Can answers cite a specific document version?+
When reconciliation observes a supported changed file and the connection owner remains a Timeline team member, Timeline stores its current content as a document version and can cite that captured evidence. Separate observed sync states can become separate versions; edits between syncs may collapse into the latest body. If the connector leaves the team, metadata continues while body capture pauses, and reconnecting does not recover intervening states unless Drive reports another change. Timeline does not import the file’s earlier Drive revision history.
What happens if a file is removed?+
Timeline records the Drive tombstone while retaining previously captured evidence according to its immutable event-history model. Because Drive omits parent information from removal tombstones, the current sync can record a deleted file’s ID and removal time even when its former area was not activated; the tombstone contains no file body.
Does Timeline write changes back to Drive?+
No. Drive remains authoritative for document content, collaboration, and permissions. The integration is a read and capture path.
