Home / ubuntu / Questions / 1347673
In Process
Martin Zeltin
Asked: 2021-06-23 23:47:35 +0800 CST

How to rsync my Google Drive with a local folder?

  • 772

Since the built-in nautilus Google Drive is so super slow, I was wondering if there is a way to have my Google Drive contents automatically downloaded to a local folder and then when I make a change it would automatically sync?

Basically, I would like to create a /home/user/Google-Drive where to sync my existing Google Drive. So that all my Drive files would be locally on my machine.

nautilus

2 Answers

  1. Apart from a closed source proprietary solution, rclone may be a good bet.

    • You can mount a network drive with rclone. The extent of caching can be tuned, and as such, it may work better than the build in nautilus Google Drive.
    • If that still does not cut it, you could effectively mirror with a local copy using rclone, which is a dedicated tool for this, or even rsync. The automation part, however, would need to be scripted. On log-in, you could automatically synchronize the local copy. Google drive could then be updated every now and then, e.g. through a command sheduled in cron job, or perhaps using inotify: this can be set up to watch files or a directory tree for changes, and trigger commands when this happens. The limitation of such approach is that only one user can be working with the network drive this way to avoid conflicts.
    • 1

  2. There is a dearth of simpe workable solutions of late since the deprecation of some from the past but an alternative does exist in the form of ExpanDrive for Linux

    As in the case of insync it is a paid solution (similar cost) with 1 week free trial but the cost after that is not onerous and indeed, if you decide not to elect to have upgrades then the application remains free with a limit of 20 minutes per session in use. Access to your data always remains whether you pay for the licence and or support/updates or not.

    The app loads an icon into the system tray and will handle multiple online accounts such as Box, Google Drive, One Drive, Amazon S3, Dropbox &etc. This is superior to other solutions which require navigation to Other Locations in Nautilus and is very similar to the way the Dropbox desktop app performs (although you can still navigate to Other Locations if required to access your files).

    Basically, I would like to create a /home/user/Google-Drive where to sync my existing Google Drive.

    As indicated, ExpanDrive creates a folder in your /Home folder: /Home/ExpanDrive and a separate folder in there for each online account. You can simply specify that folder when saving files and they will be synced to your Google Drive automatically (as is the case with other online accounts).

    Installing ExpanDrive on ubuntu is very simple. Download the .deb file from the link to your local drive, click on it and follow the prompts to install to your system.

    The latest version was released on 16 June 2021 so bang up to date.

    As this is potentially a paid for solution (if you choose to, as explained) and not FOSS, just to be clear, I have no association with this package or the developers in any form other than as a user.

    • 0