Google Drive takes a very long time to open with GNOME Online Accounts
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.
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?
Solution 1:
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:
- Open Drive - https://snapcraft.io/odrive-unofficial
- InSync - https://www.insynchq.com/
- OverGrive - https://www.thefanclub.co.za/overgrive
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:
- Rsync
- Drive - https://github.com/odeke-em/drive
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.)
Solution 2:
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":
Solution 3:
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