Google Drive support is being discontinued in StableBit CloudDrive.
- Please make sure to back up all of your data on any existing Google Drive cloud drives to a different location as soon as possible.
- Google Drive cloud drives will not be accessible after May 15, 2024.
FAQ
Q: What does this mean? Do I have to do anything with the data on my existing cloud drives that are using the Google Drive storage provider?
A: Yes, you do need to take action in order to continue to have access to your data stored on Google Drive. You need to make a copy of all of the data on your Google Drive cloud drives to another location by May 15, 2024.
Q: What happens after Google Drive support is discontinued in StableBit CloudDrive? What happens to any data that is still remaining on my drives?
A: Your Google Drive based cloud drives will become inaccessible after May 15, 2024. Therefore, any data on those drives will also be inaccessible. It will technically not be deleted, as it will still continue to be stored on Google Drive. But because StableBit CloudDrive will not have access to it, you will not be able to mount your drives using the app.
Q: Is there any way to continue using Google Drive with StableBit CloudDrive after the discontinue date?
A: You can, in theory, specify your own API keys in our ProviderSettings.json file and continue to use the provider beyond the discontinue date, but this is not recommended for a few reasons:
- Google Drive is being discontinued because of reliability issues with the service. Continuing to use it puts your data at risk, and is therefore not recommended.
- We will not be actively updating the Google Drive storage provider in order to keep it compatible with any changes Google makes to their APIs in the future. Therefore, you may lose access to the drive because of some future breaking change that Google makes.
Q: What happens if I don't backup my data in time? Is there any way to access it after the discontinue date?
A: Yes. It's possible to download your entire CloudPart folder from Google Drive. The CloudPart folder represents all of your cloud drive data. You can then run our conversion tool to convert this data to a format that you can mount locally using the Local Disk storage provider.
The conversion tool is located here: C:\Program Files\StableBit\CloudDrive\Tools\Convert\CloudDrive.Convert.exe
The steps to do this would be:
- Log in to your Google Drive web interface ( https://drive.google.com/ ).
- Find the CloudPart... folder that you would like to recover under the root "StableBit CloudDrive" folder. Each CloudPart folder represents a cloud drive, identified by a unique number (UID).
- Download the entire CloudPart folder (from the Google Drive web interface, click the three dots to the right of the folder name and click Download). This download may consist of multiple files, so make sure to get them all.
- Decompress the downloaded file(s) to the same location (e.g. G:\CloudPart-1ddb5a50-cae2-456a-a017-b48c254088b3)
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Run our conversion tool from the command line like so:
CloudDrive.Convert.exe GoogleDriveToLocalDisk G:\CloudPart-1ddb5a50-cae2-456a-a017-b48c254088b3
After the conversion, the folder will be renamed to: G:\StableBit CloudDrive Data (1e6884be-b748-43db-a78c-a4a2c720ceef)
- After the conversion completes, open StableBit CloudDrive and connect the Local Disk provider to the parent folder where the converted CloudPart folder is stored. For example, If your cloud part is stored in G:\StableBit CloudDrive Data (1e6884be-b748-43db-a78c-a4a2c720ceef), connect your Local Disk provider to G:\ (you can also use the three dots (...) to connect to any sub-folder, if necessary). You will now see your Google Drive listed as a local cloud drive, and you can attach it just like any other cloud drive.
If you need further assistance with this, feel free to get in touch with technical support, and we will do our best to help out: https://stablebit.com/Contact
Q: Why is Google Drive being discontinued?
A: Over the years we've seen a lot of data consistency issues with Google Drive (spontaneously duplicating chunks, disappearing chunks, chunks reverting to a previous historic state, and service outages), some of which were publicized: https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-heres-what-caused-sundays-big-outage
For that last one, we actually had to put in an in-app warning cautioning people against the use of Google Drive because of these issues.
Recently, due to a change in policy, Google is forcing all third-party apps (that are using a permissive scope) to undergo another reverification process. For the reasons mentioned above, we have chosen not to pursue this reverification process and are thus discontinuing Google Drive support in StableBit CloudDrive.
We do apologize for the great inconvenience that this is causing everyone, and we will aim not to repeat this in the future with other providers. Had we originally known how problematic this provider would be, we would have never added it in the first place.
To this end, in the coming months, we will be refocusing StableBit CloudDrive to work with robust object-based storage providers such as Amazon S3 and the like, which more closely align with the original design goals for the app.
If you have any further questions not covered in this FAQ, please feel free to reach out to us and we will do our best to help out: https://stablebit.com/Contact
Thank you for your continued support, we do appreciate it.