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Is it possible to "map network drive" for Google Drive so it appears as a usual Windows drive in Explorer?

(And on a Mac and Linux?)

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    When you install the Google Drive client app, is it possible to specify a different location for the local folder (other than c:\users\username\Google Drive)? Can you specify a NAS drive letter on your local network (like a Z: drive mapped to a Synology NAS)? Or, after the Google Drive client app is installed, is there a way to change the path for the local folder to a NAS drive letter?
    – user131818
    May 2, 2012 at 15:58
  • +1 @Bennett Herring - good questions! superuser.com user Pulsar (below) suggests using subst - would that work for you?
    – therobyouknow
    May 2, 2012 at 19:37
  • I'd love to know if it's possible to mount Google Drive as a drive due to serious lack of space on my machine.
    – Dan Atkinson
    May 5, 2012 at 18:36
  • @BennettHerring you can specify where google drive should store the files in the google drive app settings.
    – Mattias Isegran Bergander
    May 6, 2012 at 21:34

3 Answers 3

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No just a folder. Well you could use the subst command to map a folder as drive letter I guess. Haven't tested it, google drive might do something special, syntax wrong somewhere etc.

subst g: "c:\users\username\Google Drive"

Change "username" to your user name of course. Run at startup using a bat-file perhaps i autostart or similar.

I'm curious, why a drive, not OK with just a folder? Multiple users sharing perhaps? If so permissions might be needed to be set.

Update: I got curious and tried it and it seems to work.

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    Actually you can persist the subst command across reboots: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subst#Persisting_across_reboots
    – Mattias Isegran Bergander
    May 2, 2012 at 12:35
  • +1 This is good enough. But the steps to getting c:\users\username\Google Drive in the first place aren't shown - presumably this Google Drive has a client app to get this path. What is c:\users\username\Google Drive actually? This looks like a local path on the machine not the network location of Google Drive itself.
    – therobyouknow
    May 2, 2012 at 12:49
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    Google drive indeed has a client app, just like dropbox etc. That app creates and uses that path. You can download the google drive app from your google drive account below the menu to the left: drive.google.com
    – Mattias Isegran Bergander
    May 2, 2012 at 12:56
  • Accepted, I think this covers it.
    – therobyouknow
    May 2, 2012 at 14:08
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    Thank you for your input an time, @Mattias Isegran Bergander, since asking this question, I have found an app, Mountain Duck, that does do the mount of a remote cloud drive and now make this as the accepted answer, as it is the closest app/solution to my needs.
    – therobyouknow
    Dec 17, 2018 at 12:05
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Linux support is on its way apparently. and will no doubt use webdav (possibly FTP too). Windows, OSX and Linux all support mounting webdav based file systems (you use davfs2 under linux).

There will also be a syncing client for linux that means the files will be available when the network is not (the same way the Windows and OSX clients work).

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  • +1 For the info on the OSs webdav mount capability - I presume Google Drive supports webdav too.
    – therobyouknow
    May 2, 2012 at 14:09
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Update circa 2022

The official Google drive desktop client on Windows now mounts as a drive letter as this question originally asked. On mac it is the equivalent with a drive mounted as if it was an attached local drive.

A limitation is that the drive size / free space shown is a little less than the machine's own local physical system drive capacity. Even if the Google Drive capacity is much larger, e.g. 2Tb.

e.g. in my own case, my system drive partition is 422Gb

local system drive capacity and free space as shown in explorer

Google drive mounted as G is same size but with a little less free space even though my actual google drive in the cloud is 2Tb.

drive capacity and free space as shown in explorer

Previous solutions mentioned can also be considered. I think the benefit of Mountain Duck may be that it can handle files larger than the local physical system drive in the machine.

Mountain Duck will map Google drive as a network drive - according to the Mountain Duck website :

Mountain Duck lets you mount server and cloud storage as a disk in Finder on macOS and the File Explorer on Windows. Open remote files with any application and work like on a local volume.

Note that this is a paid-for app. But it has a flexible license if you yourself want to use it on all your machines - https://mountainduck.io/buy/ :

One license can be used on any number of computers as long as it is the same user accessing the software

Available for both Mac and PC.

Another app work looking at is InSync - this doesn't mount a cloud drive like Mountain Duck, but it does provide more features than Google's own drive app, plus it's available on Linux as well as Mac and Windows.

I don't work for them nor have any financial interest.

Making this answer the accepted.

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