Mount Google Drive in Linux?

Now that Google Drive is available, how do we mount it to a Linux filesystem? Similar solutions exist for Amazon S3 and Rackspace Cloud Files.

Answers:

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Method 1

Grive or inSync is a file sync tool which syncs up a local file system and remote Google Drive. You cannot “mount” Google Drive using these tools.

For mounting, use google-drive-ocamlfuse, FUSE-based filesystem for Google Drive.

Installation instructions, and more details about configuration, and authorization are at the Installation of FUSE filesystem over Google Drive wiki page (on GitHub).

The project’s GitHub homepage also has the readme file that is for the google-drive-ocamlfuse source code.

Here are distro-specific instructions to mount Google Drive with google-drive-ocamlfuse.

Method 2

An open source client for Google Drive exists: Grive.

For now, the application is considered experimental and it lacks full sync, but it can upload and download new or changed files already (so you can access your files offline). What it can’t do yet is: wait for changes and automatically sync the files or delete files (when a file is deleted locally, it’s ignored and when it’s deleted remotely, it’s reuploaded if it exists locally).

Sources and binaries are available on Github. A third party, webupd8, has provided a PPA for Ubuntu.

Note that this project is officially abandoned since September 2018.

Method 3

rclone

rclone is an option that you can get through your package manager without adding a PPA.

It is a command-line tool for working with various cloud storage services including Google Drive, Amazon S3, Dropbox, Box… and it can be used to mount your Google Drive as a virtual file system:

sudo apt install rclone
rclone config # See config process below
mkdir ~/drive
rclone mount $NAME_OF_RCLONE_REMOTE: ~/drive/

Configuring rclone

1. Enter n for “New remote”
2. Enter any arbitrary name for your remote, referenced in the steps above as $NAME_OF_RCLONE_REMOTE
3. The program prints a list of cloud services. Find “Google Drive” and enter the number for it
4. The program prompts you for a few more pieces of information
5. You’ll perform an Oauth authentication
6. Enter q to finish

See a more detailed walkthrough at https://ostechnix.com/how-to-mount-google-drive-locally-as-virtual-file-system-in-linux/

Method 4

There is an SDK available, so someone will probably make a linux solution soon. There is also a drive on Google+ going on right now to get Google to add a Linux client, in addition to the Windows, Mac, and Android clients (not to mention their plans for an iOS client.)

Then they will be on par with Dropbox 🙂 (with a bit more extra free space by default)

Method 5

A package from Luca Invernizzi exists to do so. See http://code.google.com/p/google-docs-fs/wiki/OnlineManual.

For Ubuntu:

First you need to add the packages provided by Luca and available in his PPA (Ubuntu 11.10 only at present):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:invernizzi/google-docs-fs
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install google-docs-fs

Once everything that’s needed has been installed log out and back in.

1. Open Nautilus Create a new folder in your Home folder titled Drive
2. Open a Terminal and run: gmount Drive [email protected]
3. Input your password
4. Your Google Drive is now mounted in the Drive folder

Source: How to access Google Drive via Nautilus in Ubuntu

Method 6

Insync is a Linux client for Google Drive with the following features:

• multiple Google accounts support
• offline Google docs editing
• right-click share in the context menu
• recent changes notifications
• external hard drive support
• support for the most popular distributions (Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Debian, Fedora, openSUSE)
• support for the most popuar desktop environments (Unity, MATE, GNOME Shell, Cinnamon, KDE 4, Xfce)
• support for multiple file managers (Nautilus, Caja, Nemo, Dolphin, Thunar)

Learn more at insynchq.com/linux.

Disclaimer: I’m one of the developers of Insync.

Method 7

I’ve just discovered insync. I don’t know how good it is; it seems to be closed source.

PD (2018/12/28): After several years using insync I can strongly recommend it as a Linux desktop synchronizer for Google Drive. Check this post for more feature details.

Method 8

An alternative approach is to use an online service to access Google Drive using WebDAV (e.g. using http://synqya.appspot.com) so there is no need for a client installation or other add-ons.

Method 9

I followed the instructions here:

http://xmodulo.com/2013/10/mount-google-drive-linux.html

and got it to work successfully on Fedora 16.

This builds google-drive-ocamlfuse, which is then used to access google drive.

Method 10

While it is not a filesystem mount via the Linux kernel, KIO GDrive (part of KDE) enables KIO-aware applications (such as the Dolphin file manager, Kate editor, or Gwenview image viewer) to access, navigate, and edit Google Drive files.

kio-gdrive is available as package in several Linux distributions. If installed, the Dolphin file manager will get an entry “Google Drive” under “Network”. There, an unprivileged desktop user can ‘mount’ a GoogleDrive account via a guided graphical configuration (during which the default browser will be opened where one needs to give KDE KAaccounts permission to access the GoogleDrive account).

This method doesn’t provide access to GoogleDrive via a terminal, but it integrates it nicely with a graphical desktop.

Method 11

Insync is actually the best client for Google Driver around

https://www.insynchq.com

It’s full featured, and free during the beta phase.

All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0