Grive2 is an unofficial Google Drive Desktop client for Linux Ubuntu Systems. It is a Google Drive client with support for new Drive REST API and partial sync.
It simply downloads all the files in your Google Drive into the current directory. After you make some changes to the local files, run grive again and it will upload your changes back to your Google Drive. New files created locally or in Google Drive will be uploaded or downloaded respectively. Deleted files will also be “removed”. Currently Grive will NOT destroy any of your files: it will only move the files to a directory named .trash or put them in the Google Drive trash. You can always recover them.
Install Grive2 in Ubuntu
Run the following commands in Terminal to install Grive2 in Ubuntu Systems via PPA:
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install grive
Usage
Backup
Since grive is still «beta» or «alpha» you should better keep a backup copy of your google directory.
First Run
Change to your google drive sync directory, and run grive -a:
cd /home/you/yourGoogleDrive/
grive -a
The «-a» option is only needed the very first time you run grive. Visit the URL that comes up, then post the auth code given (you must have been logged into Google). You should get some messages including «Synchronizing files» … now you are running.
Syncs
To sync, you must run the program manually (there is no «real-time watching» yet). At the prompt, type:
cd /home/you/yourGoogleDrive/
grive
You can set up a cron job, if you want this done on a regular basis.
There are a few things that Grive does not do at the moment:
- continuously wait for changes in file system or in Google Drive to occur and upload. A sync is only performed when you run Grive.
- symbolic links support.
- support for Google documents.