Google Drive native in Nemo

Desktop Environments Cinnamon
1

Native Google Drive in Nemo on EndeavourOS (Cinnamon)

Google Drive as a normal location in your file manager, the way it should be, and once was.

Why you might want this

  • Google Drive shows up in Nemo as a native google-drive:// location. Browse it, copy, rename and delete files like in any other folder.
  • No rclone mount and no browser workaround.
  • My existing SMB, SFTP and WebDAV bookmarks kept working after the switch.
  • The install is a single yay command. After that you add your Google account and enable the Files service.

The work behind it is Amit Lavon’s (fluhus) community project, discussed here:

It builds on GNOME Online Accounts and GVFS. It worked on my machine, but it replaces core desktop packages, so please read the warnings below before trying it.

Read this first

  • The two project packages REPLACE the standard GNOME Online Accounts and GVFS packages. They are not simple add-ons.
  • Both are AUR packages. Read their PKGBUILDs before installing.
  • I tested on one machine only, on 13 October 2026: ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 7, EndeavourOS, Cinnamon, Nemo.
  • Make a backup or a disk image first. I made a verified Rescuezilla image before starting.

Packages after installation

gnome-online-accounts-googledrive 3.58.1-3
gnome-online-accounts-gtk         3.50.11-1
gvfs-googledrive                  1.61.2-2

The first and last are the AUR packages. gnome-online-accounts-gtk stays installed from the normal repositories. After the replacement, the normal gnome-online-accounts, libgoa, gvfs and the separately packaged GVFS backends no longer showed up in the package query.

Installation

yay -S gnome-online-accounts-googledrive gvfs-googledrive

The package manager reports conflicts with the official packages. The author’s Arch instructions say these conflicts are expected and the old packages should be removed.

READ THE PROPOSED TRANSACTION CAREFULLY. On my system it removed the official packages, including gvfs-smb, gvfs-dnssd, gvfs-goa, gvfs-afc, gvfs-gphoto2, gvfs-mtp and gvfs-nfs. The replacement installed its own GVFS mount definitions.

Adding Google Drive

  1. Add your Google account through the GNOME Online Accounts interface.
  2. Enable the Files service.
  3. Google Drive appears in Nemo as a native google-drive:// location.

What I tested

Google Drive:

  • Browsed folders and files.
  • Created a temporary folder, copied a file, renamed it and deleted it.
  • Confirmed all of this showed up in Google Drive.

Existing network resources after the package replacement:

  • SMB shares
  • SFTP
  • WebDAV

These bookmarks are mounted on demand when you select them. A disconnected resource may show a yellow exclamation mark until you select it. That is normal here.

Delete behavior: an ordinary Delete sends the item to Google Drive Trash. Shift+Delete is intended for permanent deletion. Behavior may change in newer versions, so check the project thread.

What I did NOT test

  • MTP (phones), AFC (iPhones), gphoto2 (cameras) and NFS. The transaction removed their gvfs packages, and I have not checked whether the replacement covers them.
  • Shared drives and edge cases, such as Google-native document export. The project thread documents known differences.

Useful diagnostics

Installed package versions:

pacman -Q | grep -E '^(gvfs|gnome-online-accounts|libgoa)'

Mount definitions provided by the Google-enabled package:

pacman -Ql gvfs-googledrive | grep -E '/(smb|dav|davs|dnssd|google|goa)'

On my system this listed dav+sd.mount, dav.mount, google.mount, smb-browse.mount, smb.mount and goa.monitor. A mount definition’s presence does not prove the backend works, so test the actual connection in Nemo.

If Google Drive misbehaves, check the user-session logs:

journalctl --user -b | grep -iE 'gvfs|goa|google'

Updating

Because these packages replace core desktop components, updates need more care than ordinary applications.

  • The tested gvfs-googledrive was 1.61.2-2. The official GVFS version at the time was 1.62.0-3. Do not assume the two will stay compatible.
  • Before updating, check the AUR package pages and the project thread for changes to package names, version compatibility and instructions.
  • Review the complete yay transaction summary. Do not accept unexpected removals of unrelated applications or desktop components.
  • After an update, retest Google Drive (browse and write), SMB, SFTP and WebDAV.

If it goes wrong

My safety net was the verified Rescuezilla image made before the experiment. Restoring it discards everything changed after the image was taken, so back up new local data first. I have not tested rolling the packages back individually.

Background

GNOME disabled its old Google Drive integration because it depended on the unmaintained libgdata. Amit Lavon’s implementation reimplements the Drive backend on the Google Drive REST API and libsoup3.

Thanks again to fluhus for making this work.

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