Can Google Drive desktop be used on Ubuntu?

Question

I'm thinking of switching my operating system from Windows and I use Google Drive desktop with all of my video work.

Solution 1

You do not need to install software for that; instead, you only need to connect your account using GNOME Online Accounts. It's a sign-on framework for GNOME. It supports popular online services like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Nextcloud, etc; The tool comes pre-installed with Ubuntu, so you don’t have to worry about manual installation. However, if, for some reason, the app isn’t installed, then run the following command to install it quickly.

$ sudo apt update && sudo apt install gnome-online-accounts

To add your Google Drive account, search for “Settings” in the GNOME menu; then:

Settings -> Online Accounts -> Add your google account.

In your file manager, you get your google drive mounted so you can store and retrieve data there.

As commented: this does not sync your file. You alter the contents on google drive itself so needs to be online.

If you want offline access you can add a tool like Insync (payware; multiple account support, desktop notification, symlink support), or Rclone (setup instructions; freeware; command-line to sync to Google Drive, but also Dropbox, Amazon S3, and OneDrive).

Solution 2

If you are asking specifically about the Google Drive Desktop application, the answer is 'No': https://support.google.com/drive/answer/7329379#zippy=%2Csystem-requirements shows that Google product is currently (Oct 2021) available for Windows and OSX only.

If you are asking generally about Google Drive integration with Ubuntu Desktop there are several available methods for conveniently accessing Google Drive. Many of those work very well (I use Gnome's Online Accounts feature). These are not Google products, but are independent projects that use Google's API for access. None offers the full range of features (like sync) that the official Google Desktop application has, because some of those features are simply not available using the API

Solution 3

For Google Drive, this is a good client: https://github.com/odeke-em/drive as well as https://github.com/prasmussen/gdrive

These clients sync your Google Drive data to your local system

Solution 4

I use googledrive-ocamlfuse. It is tricky to setup, but works like the Windows version. That is, is doesn't sync, but streams.

It also supports shared drives.

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Comments

[Admin]

Exactly as answered but you should know that isn't needed as the Google Drive functionality can be integrated in the native Files (explorer) app.

[Admin]

There is a hack with running it using Wine. But it works bad. So you have to use Dropbox or Yandex.Drive (with GUI) as alternatives.

[Admin]

related + alternative askubuntu.com/questions/1115520/… (see further below in this answer: askubuntu.com/a/1115064/72216 in short: you can use it like on windows, but not just like that.

[Admin]

"I'm thinking of switching my operating system from Windows" Congratulations! Great choice. Especially with nonsense that windows 11 is.

[Admin]

Does this answer your question? Is there a Google Drive client available?

[Jos]

This is the correct answer. However, it should be added that this method works differently from Windows, where Google Drive synchronizes part of your local drive with the cloud. The Windows way allows you to access the files even without an Internet connection. The described method only lets you access your Drive from your system, not synchronize it. You need to be connected to the internet for it to work. And yes, it shows a network connection in the Files manager that you can use like any other location.

[Rinzwind]

@Jos is this better?

[Jos]

Yes, and thanks. As it stands this is an answer to the question. However, the OP mentions video work. On Windows, you can write a large video file to disk and have it synchronized to Google Drive in the background. On Ubuntu you can't and shouldn't write to the Drive directly. So this may conceivably be a limitation to OP.