Syncing a local folder with a folder on Google Drive

[Ben J.]

I've struggled with this on and off for years but never found a good solution.

I want to have two folders synced; one on the mac and one on Google Drive.

I have tried iCloud and Google Drive to achieve this but both work by keeping a copy of the folder and its content in ~/library/CloudStorage/Google_Drive/ - and I don't want that. I've also tried CCC, my main backup app, to sync to the google drive folder as a network storage, while running google drive desktop app, but I get only errors. Most reports online also say CCC is not good for this.

I don't mind doing it manually on google in a browser, but I would like to have the automation to have the two folders mirror eachother, keep the most recent version of files etc. Any ideas much welcome.

 

[Ben J.]

Nevermind. I figured it out.
I must have overcomplicated or something, but now I have a task in CCC that clones a local folder to a folder on my google drive.
Sweet.

 

[Ben J.]

Oh no. The files are still duplicated to ~/library/CloudStorage/Google_Drive/
I spoke too soon.

 

[MacCheetah3]

I haven’t tried it with cloud drives, but my first thought was using a symlink:

How to Create and Use Symbolic Links (Symlinks) on a Mac

Use symbolic links to store application files elsewhere without breaking the app that depends on them.

www.howtogeek.com

And, well, I found this:

How to Sync Any Folder to the Cloud With Symbolic Links

The big cloud storage services -- Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, and others -- all have the same problem.

www.howtogeek.com

 

[Ben J.]

I think I have it under control.
In short:
I have a folder that I want to share on google drive, and add/remove things, and have it updated. I have CCC cloning the local folder to the google drive folder. I have google drive desktop app running so CCC works fine for that. CCC sees the cloud folder as any folder.

But Google desktop is duplicating anything new to the ~/library/CloudStorage/Google_Drive/ folder when CCC makes changes. I've excluded this "cache" folder from my backups, and I'm sure that I can delete its content whenever I want.

Have a good day.

 

[Ben J.]

As a final point:
I can now, with Google Drive desktop running in the background, copy files to my Google Drive by using the Finder, using the Google web site, or running a CCC task to clone a local folder to a google drive folder. Only the google web site method does NOT create duplicate files in ~/library/CloudStorage/Google_Drive/.
Anyway, I'm happy with this functionality, now. I can easily manage the content of my Google Drive, and most easily with a simple click on the 'run CCC task' to update a specific folder.

I've excluded ~/library/CloudStorage/ from my backup tasks (to not have backups of already unwanted duplicates), and I can whenever I want right-click on any folder on Google Drive in a finder window, and select "Remove download" (or whatever it's called in english) and the cloud-arrow sign comes back, indicating that the file or folder exists only in the cloud, and doesn't take up space on my mac.