Google Drive Linux Client

The fork supports the new Google Drive REST API and it also includes a new feature called partial (directory) sync. As you may know, Grive2 is a command line, open source, unofficial client for Google Drive. Grive can do two-side synchronization between the Google Drive and the local directory. Arcsoft™ – website builder 1 3 2017. GoSync is a GUI-enabled Google Drive client for Linux. It is written in Python and released under the GNU General Public License 2. It has not been perfected enough to compete with Google Drive clients on Windows, for example, but it gets the job done. Insync is the most feature-rich Google Drive desktop client available out there. You'll find almost everything you want from a Google Drive client in it, including multiple account support, desktop notification, symlink support etc. It's available for all major Linux distros and the installation process straightforward.

1. Google Drive Linux Client Ubuntu
2. Google Drive Linux Client Settings

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Insight: Top Open Source Google Drive Clients For Linux

Google Drive can be the best option if you are looking to store your contents online safely. You can even edit your documents, spreadsheets, presentations and other documents. For now, Google has officially developed a client application for Windows, OS X, iOS and Android platform but not for Linux operating systems. Meanwhile, there is the number of open-source google drive clients available for Linux.

In this post, we will show some of the best open-source google drive clients for a Linux operating system in 2018.

Top Open Source Google Drive Clients For Linux 2020

1) GoSync

Developed by Himanshu Chauhan, GoSync is useful google drive client for Linux distros. It is written in python language. It syncs everything from the drive. By default, the sync is turned on. You can pause it by clicking the 'Pause/Resume Sync' menu item.

GoSync also monitors for the file changes in the local mirror directory. When a new file is created in local mirror, it is immediately uploaded to the Google Drive.

2) google-drive-ocamlfuse

google-drive-ocamlfuse is a FUSE filesystem backed by Google Drive, written in OCaml. It lets you mount your Google Drive on Linux.

How To Install

Use the commands below:

3) Drive

This application is developed by google employee Burcu Dogan. Drive is a tiny program to pull or push Google Drive files. Now this application is maintained by Emmanuel T Odeke.

4) Rclone

Rclone is another amazing tool to sync your files to google drive. It lets you sync files and directories to and from:
1)Google Drive
2)Amazon Drive
3)Amazon s3
4)Box
5)Dreamhost
6)Dropbox
7)And many more

5) Grive 2

Grive2 is the fork of the original abandoned application Grive. Grive2 can do two-side synchronization between the Google Drive and local directory: it can download and upload changed files, create new directories, and move deleted files to the trash.

Uploading or Downloading a file – Google Drive Linux Client using GDrive

Maybe something people can use as additional storage space?? GDrive is a Google Drive Linux Client that no Unix Administrator or user can do without.

Whilst browsing around the net a few weeks ago I came across a tool that just grabbed my attention. On the face of it I wasnt sure how useful this would be, but I showed it to one of my clients just in case he found some business function where he could use it.

Anyway last week he came back to me as he wanted to share a file with multiple people so this tool seemed ideal to be able to do it.

Introduction to GDrive

Firstly this tool can be used across multiple flavours of Linux (I use Centos 6 normally), as well as raspberry pi, windows (not sure of the practical use for this…), and even Apple Mac.

Installing GDrive – Google Drive Linux Client

Simply download the latest version from their github page HERE

For my Centos 6 server I used this one : drive-linux-x64 v1.9.0

(right click and copy link url then paste into wget below)

wget -O /usr/local/bin/gdrive 'paste url here'

I copied the file into /usr/local/bin so it is globally available to all users on my server, and I also renamed it to gdrive juat as I thought that would be easier to remember !! Dont forget to make the file executable (chmod +x /usr/local/bin/gdrive) and thats it !!!

Google Drive Linux Client Ubuntu

Configuring GDrive using your Google Drive Linux Client

When you first run any gdrive command it will prompt you to link it to your google drive account and give it permissions. Easiest way to do this is just to try and list the files on your Google Drive like this :

gdrive list

The program will then return with a url you need to link it to your account. Here is how I did it :

1) Open Chrome (or any browser) and log in to the Google account you want to link gdrive with
2) Make sure you can see in your apps Google Drive appearing (the menu in the top right is normally where it appears
3) Paste in the url from the output of the ‘gdrive list' you did earlier, and accept the permissions prompt it needs to enable gdrive to upload and download files.

Once you have done all that then go back to your command line session and run the ‘gdrive list' again. You should see a list of your files on Google Drive !!

First proper test of GDrive – Uploading a file – Google Drive Linux Client

Once again a very simple process. As example just copy your /etc/hosts file to Google Drive like this :

How to use alexa as speaker for mac. gdrive upload -f /etc/hosts

How damn simple is that !!!

Google Drive Linux Client Settings

Run your ‘gdrive list' again to see your file there. You can also see it in your browser if you are still logged in Google Drive (or log back in just to check then you know it all works!)

Downloading a file from Google Drive Linux Client with GDrive

Ok so you may have noticed when you did ‘gdrive list' in the previous steps that each file has an ID? Do it again and you will see :

# gdrive list
Id Title Size Created
0B0tRrdcY7CwJZHh5ZmVpZHRMYW8 drive-linux-amd64 10 MB 2014-09-25 17:47:08
0B0tRrdcY7CwJY2lNS2x3NC1lQUU drive-linux-386 8 MB 2014-09-25 17:47:01
0B0tRrdcY7CwJR3lmZnlRaFZwOHc drive-linux-arm 9 MB 2014-09-25 17:46:57
0B0tRrdcY7CwJQlRfQUVxY2hkWUE drive-linux-rpi 9 MB 2014-09-25 17:46:52

So to download a file it is the ID you use and not the filename. Therefore just as simple this is how you download a file :

gdrive download -i 0B0tRrdcY7CwJZHh5ZmVpZHRMYW8

And thats it !! Are you falling in love with this program as much as I did?? (dont worry, I have got over it now…)

Sharing a file you have uploaded to Google Drive Linux using GDrive on the command line

The one part of this program that maybe could be improved in the future…. sure you can share a file, the only limitation at the moment is you can only share to EVERYONE, and not to specific people/emails.

Anyway here is how you do it. Same as the download option you need the file ID which you can get from the ‘gdrive list' method :

gdrive share -i 0B0tRrdcY7CwJZHh5ZmVpZHRMYW8

Other functionality in GDrive – Google Drive Linux Client

There is a few other options in GDrive that are pretty cool ive listed below :

– Delete a file from Google Drive
– Create a folder on your Google Drive (this folder can also be shared to everyone)
– Upload a file into a folder on Google Drive (using a parent ID of the folder)

Not bad at all for a freebie !!!

Any comments or questions let me know, dont forget to share this post to others who may find it useful, and please check out my other Linux and Bash tips HERE and HERE

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