This tool isn’t for most people, but it does provide a well-supported way to interact with a Google Drive file system from the terminal. This program was originally written by Burcu Dogan, aka rakyll, a Google employee who has worked for Google Drive’s platform team. It’s even copyrighted by Google. It’s open-source and written in Google’s “Go” programming language. If you’re more of a Terminal geek, drive is a small command line program that runs on both Linux and macOS. drive: A Command-line Tool by a Google Drive Developer

But the tool may be worth the price if you need it. The $30 fee may be a tough pill to swallow when you could just switch to another service like Dropbox, which offers an official Linux client for free. It will appear in the File Manager application. Just open the GNOME Control Center (or “Settings”) application, click “Online Accounts”, and add your Google account. On a Linux distribution that includes GNOME 3.18 or later, you can do this without any additional software. To enable thumbnail previews, click Edit > Preferences > Preview, click the “Show Thumbnail” box, and select “Always”. Any files you add or delete are instantly synchronized back to your Google account, too. Your system will automatically upload the modified copy.

However, you can browse files, open them, and save them. These files are not synced offline to your desktop. Click it to view your Google Drive files. Open the File Manger and you’ll see your Google account’s email address as an option under “Computer” in the sidebar. Ensure that the “Files” option is enabled here. Give the GNOME desktop access to your account when prompted. Click the “Add Account” button, select “Google”, and sign into your Google account.

How to detect google drive login