Google File Stream Login

1. Google File Stream Login
2. Google Drive Stream
3. Google Drive File Stream Login
4. Google Backup And Sync Download
5. Upgrade Google Drive

1. You are now signed out of your Google Drive, which means your files will not be synced until you reconnect the account. When you're ready to reconnect, click the Backup & Sync icon and enter your login information. Once logged in, select a folder on your computer to sync. It may take a while to re-sync your files.
2. Google allows users to search the Web for images, news, products, video, and other content.

I'm in a hurry! TL;DR?

1. Download and unzip this Automator script to your Home dir (or iCloud Drive)
2. open System Preferences > Users & Groups
3. select your user on the left
4. switch to Login Items on the right
5. click the '+' at the bottom of the list
6. select the Clear Google File Stream Cache script you've just downloaded
7. Done!

Google File Stream Login

Google Drive File Stream is a Google service that you can use to map 'My Drive' and 'Shared Drives' so that people in our educational areas can use it like a file share. This maps a drive 'G:' and then can access things without having to go to the web (drive.google.com). Here are the instructions for the said procedure: First, go to Google Drive File Stream drive from the left panel on a folder explorer window. Then, launch any of the displayed folder and list all the stored files in the drive. Then, right-click on any of the file or folder and select Drive File StreamAvailable Offline.

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What's the problem?

Google Drive Stream

Google Drive File Stream is a compelling option among cloud storage services – as the name implies, it does not store all your files physically on your disk, but rather, it streams them. While technically this is somewhat true, there is a catch here: a local cache is built to speed things up (and save bandwidth on both ends).

Problem is, the cache size configuration is not behaving as it should: there is a KB article that aims to tell you how to configure the Google Drive File Stream cache policy, in reality it didn't work me and neither did for a handful of other users. Depending on usage, the content_cache folder easily eats up anywhere between 40 to 110 gigabytes of storage.

What can we do about it?

Google Drive File Stream Login

There already are a number of threads about this problem, click here to check the one I've posted to as well – in the meantime, I've put together a small hack-ish solution to clear the cache on login which essentially means deleting the content_cache folder within the user's Library/Application Support/Google/DriveFS using the default shell provided by macOS.

Google Backup And Sync Download

You can check the TL;DR above or follow along and do the steps yourself to achieve the same result.

We're going to use a basic find command within a shell script that is run via an Apple Automator application every time the user logs in. Alternatively, one could also use plist files for launch demons at login.

Let's get started!

Creating the Apple Automator script

1. Google File Stream Login
2. Google Drive Stream
3. Google Drive File Stream Login
4. Google Backup And Sync Download
5. Upgrade Google Drive

1. You are now signed out of your Google Drive, which means your files will not be synced until you reconnect the account. When you're ready to reconnect, click the Backup & Sync icon and enter your login information. Once logged in, select a folder on your computer to sync. It may take a while to re-sync your files.
2. Google allows users to search the Web for images, news, products, video, and other content.

I'm in a hurry! TL;DR?

1. Download and unzip this Automator script to your Home dir (or iCloud Drive)
2. open System Preferences > Users & Groups
3. select your user on the left
4. switch to Login Items on the right
5. click the '+' at the bottom of the list
6. select the Clear Google File Stream Cache script you've just downloaded
7. Done!

Google File Stream Login

Google Drive File Stream is a Google service that you can use to map 'My Drive' and 'Shared Drives' so that people in our educational areas can use it like a file share. This maps a drive 'G:' and then can access things without having to go to the web (drive.google.com). Here are the instructions for the said procedure: First, go to Google Drive File Stream drive from the left panel on a folder explorer window. Then, launch any of the displayed folder and list all the stored files in the drive. Then, right-click on any of the file or folder and select Drive File StreamAvailable Offline.

Tableau public dashboard examples. Stunning data visualization examples from across the web created with Tableau Public.

What's the problem?

Google Drive Stream

Google Drive File Stream is a compelling option among cloud storage services – as the name implies, it does not store all your files physically on your disk, but rather, it streams them. While technically this is somewhat true, there is a catch here: a local cache is built to speed things up (and save bandwidth on both ends).

Problem is, the cache size configuration is not behaving as it should: there is a KB article that aims to tell you how to configure the Google Drive File Stream cache policy, in reality it didn't work me and neither did for a handful of other users. Depending on usage, the content_cache folder easily eats up anywhere between 40 to 110 gigabytes of storage.

What can we do about it?

Google Drive File Stream Login

There already are a number of threads about this problem, click here to check the one I've posted to as well – in the meantime, I've put together a small hack-ish solution to clear the cache on login which essentially means deleting the content_cache folder within the user's Library/Application Support/Google/DriveFS using the default shell provided by macOS.

Google Backup And Sync Download

You can check the TL;DR above or follow along and do the steps yourself to achieve the same result.

We're going to use a basic find command within a shell script that is run via an Apple Automator application every time the user logs in. Alternatively, one could also use plist files for launch demons at login.

Let's get started!

Creating the Apple Automator script

Upgrade Google Drive

1. start the Automator app either via Launchpad, Spotlight or Finder > Applications
2. once it has started, select Application and click Choose
3. in the top-left corner click on Library (if it is not already visible
4. select 'Library' at the top of the tree list
5. search for 'Run Shell Script' and add it via double-clicking on it
6. for Shell select /bin/sh
7. put the following into the text field:
   find ~/Library/Application Support/Google/DriveFS -type d -exec test -e '{}'/content_cache ; -exec rm -rf {}/content_cache ;
8. click on File > Save…
9. set the File Format to Application
10. save it to your Home folder or iCloud Drive with a descriptive name, like 'Clear Google File Stream Cache'

Adding the cache cleaning script to the Login Items

1. open System Preferences > Users & Groups
2. select your user on the left
3. switch to the Login Items tab on the right
4. click the '+' at the bottom of the list
5. select the Clear Google File Stream Cache script you've just saved
6. Done!

Now the Google Drive File Stream cache is cleared by removing the content_cache directory every time during the user's login.