Google Drive is not displayed in the file manager in the beta version of Fedor 44.
Is it no longer supported or is it a bug?
In the settings where you add a Google Online account, you can enable permissions for mail, contacts and calendar. It is impossible to give access to files. There is also no way to give this permission on the Google website.
As written before, Libgdata has been unmaintained for years. It pulled in ancient dependencies into the software stack (libsoup2), blocking improvements in other parts of our software stack. I’m happy for you that it had not broken for you yet, it might break in an uncontrolled way at any random point in the future though, plus there is no unlimited number of volunteers that will happily spend time to understand that unmaintained codebase once things break. You are free to experiment with the existing code and compile your own local versions if you feel adventurous and maintain such functionality for yourself.
There’s no point in contacting the GVfs maintainer about this unless you intend to fork and maintain libgdata. My last call back in December 2022 was not a joke. It’s been so long that libgdata is now archived, so you cannot contribute even if you want to.
GNOME had already disabled this functionality years ago, but distros sometimes move slowly. If Fedora had disabled it sooner, then perhaps users would have noticed the problem before the project was archived rather than after. Oh well.
Hi,
that check was for gvfs to allow you access Google Drive, but since
gvfs depends on libgdata and it was not ported to libsoup3, the gvfs
effectively did not use this for several versions already. A move was
done to hide it from the GUI, to avoid user confusion. Note the Drive
was visible in Files (nautilus), but it could not be accessed from
there.
Hi,
I can see two options, one is to port libgdata to libsoup 3 series, or
to write a built-in code into the gvfs, replacing the libgdata API it
uses.
You better ask the gvfs project maintainers what their preference would
be before starting on it. From my point of view, libgdata is dead, keep
it as that.
I just got the sad news that the Google Drive integration with Nautilus is going away (or maybe has been gone for a while). This means a significant reduction in QOL for me using GNOME.
So I’d like to ask, what would it take to bring it back?
Is it only about the libsoup migration? Or are there other things? I’m happy to try and take a look.
Libgdata is done, and you can’t really resurrect it.
You can check the subset of libgdata used by GVFS for the Google Drive backend, and reimplement it in a separate library that uses non-deprecated dependencies.
Hi, gvfs maintainer here. There is no need to resurrect the libgdata library, certainly not the whole library. Gvfs only used a relatively small part of it, so it would be enough to resurrect and simplify just the Drive-related part. The problem with Google APIs is that they evolve quite quickly, which makes it difficult for them to maintain a universal library. So the way to restore the functionality would be to create a small Drive-related library without any API guarantees, either separately or as part of the GVfs codebase, similar to other GNOME projects that still support some Google services.
Hi all, I’ve created a lightweight(-ish) and self-contained reimplementation of Google Drive support directly in gvfs (removing the dependency on libgdata). The new backend is written from scratch and uses the modern Google Drive REST API via libsoup3. It supports the basic functions needed for Nautilus: browsing, upload, download, mkdir, rename, etc. I tried to keep it minimal and support exactly what Nautilus needs. I’ve been testing it on my personal Google Drive with Fedora Workstation 43 / GNOME 49.
Some advanced features and edge cases are still in the works (see below), but I believe the current state is clean and useful enough to start testing with the community.
Deliberate behavioral changes compared to libgdata:
Pressing delete on a file used to remove it permanently with libgdata, now it sends it to Drive’s trash. Pressing shift+delete removes it permanently.
Copying a native file (Google Docs, Google Sheets…) to the local machine was unsupported with libgdata, now it downloads the file as docx, xlsx, etc.
Native files now have icons.
Main planned follow-ups:
Handle shared drives
Multi-parent deletions (files that are in several directories)
Optimize uploads (they work but files are currently loaded fully to RAM)
Better updates to Nautilus view upon file copy/move
Happy to get your thoughts and feedback. I’m happy to open a merge request to gvfs, and to help maintain this backend going forward.
If you still need to connect Google Drive and have it mounted, you can use RaiDrive. I use Google Drive daily, and for me, having it readily available is essential; I was deeply saddened by the news that it would no longer be accessible via GNOME Accounts in GNOME 50. However, I remembered that I used this app back in my Windows days, and upon checking, I discovered there is a Linux version available. It is a CLI version, but it allows you to mount your Drive to a mount point of your choice, enabling you to use it just as you normally would through your favorite file manager.
One small detail: after mounting it, it takes a few seconds to appear as an additional drive in your file manager’s list of drives.