ObjectExplorer
Open AppDownload

Google Drive ​

ObjectExplorer reads and writes Google Drive through the Drive API, signed in with OAuth. The Google Drive app does not have to run on this machine: a path such as gdrive://Reports/q3.csv goes straight to your drive, and the files are previewed, copied and moved like objects in a bucket.

Connecting ​

There is no Google Drive row in Settings yet — the Google sign-in there is for Cloud Storage. A drive is linked on a server — objectexplorer started from a terminal, which serves the app to your browser — and only from that server's own machine:

  1. Create an OAuth client in the Google Cloud console, and add the server's redirect address to it: http://127.0.0.1:9421/oauth/callback, with the port your server listens on.

  2. Put its client ID and secret in the server's config, server.json in the app's folder:

    json
    {
  "storage": { "gdrive": { "client_id": "<client id>", "client_secret": "<client secret>" } }
}

  3. Start the server and open its sign-in page on the same machine, http://127.0.0.1:9421/server. Under Drives, click link beside Google Drive and sign in with Google.

Add it to the tree with oe folder add gdrive:// on the server's machine, or a folder below it. Every client of the server then reads it, within the roots the owner shares. The link's refresh token is kept in the system keychain, never in a file, so it survives a restart.

For a machine with no person in front of it, leave out the client ID: the entry "gdrive": {} reads as the service account in GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS, with nothing to link.

A storage section in the server's config holds every provider of that server, so the clouds it reads go there too; Settings then cannot change them.

What is in the drive ​

gdrive:// holds the items of My Drive, and two folders beside them: Shared drives, the shared drives you are a member of, and Shared with me.

Google Docs, Sheets and Slides have no file of their own. They are listed as .docx, .xlsx and .pptx and read through Google's export, so they open as Word, Excel and PowerPoint files do.

Drive lets two items in one folder share a name. Both are listed, each with its id, so each can still be opened.

Large files ​

A file above 5 MB is uploaded through a resumable session. A part that fails for a moment is sent again by itself, and an upload cut off continues from the parts already sent when the same file is copied again, for up to a week. A copy inside the drive is made by Drive itself; no bytes pass through your machine.

A Drive folder open in the tree is listed again every few seconds, so a file someone else added shows up by itself.

Next: Dropbox.