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Following this answer: https://askubuntu.com/a/320333/719469, I added Google to my GNOME accounts but when I click on my Drive account id in Nautilus, it does not show any file and in the bottom right corner it keeps on loading till 5-7 minutes.

I tried adding a new file when the loading process finally stopped, it synced and uploaded perfectly.

But when I navigate to a different directory after a few minutes (not immediately) and again try opening the drive directory, it starts the super slow loading process again

I know this can be overcome be working on a different Nautilus tab or window while keeping the Drive open. But it is really inconvenient to wait so much if I close that tab/window by mistake or reboot my PC.

Loading takes place for 5-7 minutes

A lot of times I get these messages too:

Please note that I am using Ubuntu 18.04 and have a fast, working internet connection but am still experiencing this. I currently have around 2.5 GB data on my Drive, is it normal to experience a waiting time of 5-7 minutes for each time I open the directory or is there any workaround?

Kewal Shah
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    I have a fast internet connection and all GNOME services (GNOME online accounts, and Evolution) which interact with the Google apis are extremely slow for me, to the point where things just time out entirely. It has been this way for as long as I've ever tried it, over a year for sure. I don't know what it is that is causing this, and I haven't found any solutions. – theferrit32 Nov 27 '18 at 03:14
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    Same problem here – Fernando Pelliccioni Jan 25 '19 at 14:54
  • I have identical issue. A detail that you may find interesting... I have two google drive accounts. One is almost empty, another one has hundreds of thousands of files (photos mostly). The empty account loads within seconds in Nemo/Nautilus. The one with many files exhibits behaviour described by OP. – Art Gertner Feb 05 '19 at 20:29
  • This is the reason I moved to mega.nz – Prajwal Mar 12 '19 at 10:12
  • the issue for me are the photos (10GB+). There is no way to tell GNOME/Nautilus not to sync them. – nicolimo86 Jan 08 '21 at 10:05

5 Answers5

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Like others here, I've had the same experience with Gnome Online Accounts (super slow, and buggy), but have not had the same problem with dedicated Google Drive clients. Some clients to check out:

I've tried all of them, and they all work, though with various plusses and minuses.

If you're good on the command line, you could also check out:

One other thing to consider: I've found that the speed and reliability of Gnome Online Accounts varies by distro. With Pop!_OS (which uses Nautilus) on a fast machine, it's fast enough I don't bother with a dedicated client. (I also have it running well on a slower machine running KDE Neon, though that uses KDE online accounts, of course.)

Andrew
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  • I have been using InSync for some years now on the latest Ubuntu (so both Unity and Gnome Shell) and it was just fine. I got the lifetime purchase for it for 15GBP using coupon code "SHEEPER" (it still works).

    Beware though as it's one purchase per Google account and it's non-transferable

     – Andrew Apr 24 '19 at 14:32
1

I recommend drive https://github.com/odeke-em/drive

This is the only free drive syncing software that actually worked for me. I don't know if it's just me, but OpenDrive only downloads content and can't upload things through odrive. (among numerous other issues I had)

If you are like me and don't want to pay, you can try out drive. It doesn't have a GUI, but personally I don't think it's that important anyway. Normally on windows you just let the program sit in the background and do its thing, with drive you just have to type in some commands, which can be automated if you really want to.

To install drive, you need go installed first

go to https://golang.org/dl and download the zipped file and run

cd /ThePathYouSavedTheZipFileIn

For example cd /home/Admin/Downloads

then run

sudo tar -C /usr/local -xzf YourDownloadedVersionName.tar.gz
export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin

Go should hopefully be installed, now, install drive

go get -u github.com/odeke-em/drive/cmd/drive

Note it won't output anything, it was pretty confusing for me, and you could add a -v after the -u to make it verbose.

initiate drive by 

drive init

Now you can use drive! Example: download all the content in your google drive to a folder called gdrive

cd ~/gdrive
drive pull

Upload changes to your google drive:

cd ~/gdrive
drive push -ignore-conflict
Kenivia
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I have been using the sync option of Nautilus and google drive for a while and it was working fine. Then Nautilus started showing me a loading sign and just couldn't complete the loading leaving me unable to connect to gdrive. It went on for a week or so. Eventually I decided just to play around. I clicked on the unmount button, then clicked again on the google drive in Nautilus and it worked fine again :| I'm just sharing what worked for me.

NeStack
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0

I can't say what makes your connection slow, but perhaps you could try the Open Drive client instead? It's a GUI client for Google Drive. It's free and available through Ubuntu Software, just search "Open Drive":

Open Drive

mkkl
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    One of the reviews of this program in the Ubuntu Software center states, that someone used Open Drive to hack his computer and tried to spend money from his credit card. I suggested people to be careful about Open Drive. The rest of the reviews are also very bad – NeStack Jun 07 '21 at 13:43
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    Ah, it might have been exploited or not maintained anymore. – mkkl Jun 10 '21 at 07:30
  • I feel this means the answer should be edited to reflect this. – vermillon Jan 14 '23 at 19:14
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It seems to be a problem with 18.04 and not with 20.04. I am not suggesting one simply does the upgrade but it seems nautilus plugin "slowness" for the "online accounts" in 20.04 has been resolved for Google Drive connectivity.

CRTLBREAK
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