Google Drive changes in macOS

Over the past few months, Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, and OneDrive users on Apple computers have seen small and not-so-small changes to how files saved to these cloud services appear in the Finder. The notes below cover the Google Drive experience specifically, but some of these particulars apply to other cloud file storage solutions as well.

User experience changes in Google Drive for Desktop

Where to find "Google Drive"

In Finder, "Google Drive" no longer appears in the "Favorites" section of the sidebar. It is now listed under "Locations." You can still reach "Google Drive" from your Home directory, right after "Desktop," "Documents," and "Downloads."

If you have connected more than one Google account to Google Drive for Desktop (for example, your business and personal accounts), this link will include your email address to distinguish the accounts.

Shortcuts broken

Because of this change from "Favorites" to "Locations," any shortcuts to Google Drive folders that you created and saved to your Desktop or to the Finder sidebar will be broken and need to be recreated manually. What makes this especially confusing is that you might still see the files you expect inside these folders when you click the old links, but they will not be the files syncing to Google Drive. Recreate all your Google Drive shortcuts.

Move and copy files in Finder

Previously, if you dragged a file from a Google Drive folder to your Desktop or another local storage space, your computer copied that file. Now, if you drag a file from Google Drive to the Desktop, that file will move and be deleted from Google Drive. That is confusing, and can even be a little alarming, but it helps to think of it this way: dragging a file from Google Drive to your Desktop now works the same as dragging any file in your Finder — it moves the file. If you want to copy the file while dragging, hold down the option key.

External references may get messed up

The old version of Google Drive created full file paths that started with /Volumes/GoogleDrive/ and were the same for every user. Under the new architecture Apple requires, the full path goes through your Home folder (/Users/[yourname]/Library/CloudStorage/GoogleDrive/), which is different for every user. This can be a big problem for teams sharing files with externally-referenced files (ex-refs).

When you place images or other drawings into a file in InDesign or AutoCAD, the program saves a file path to that ex-ref. Whenever possible, that file path is a relative path that indicates where the ex-ref sits in relation to the main file. But in certain situations the saved path is an absolute path, starting from the top or root level of your entire directory. When that happens, the full file path to an ex-ref won't be the same for you as it is for your colleagues, because the absolute path includes the name of your Home folder, which matches your computer login name. So if you place a drawing into AutoCAD and a colleague then opens that file to make additional edits, they won't be able to work on the ex-ref you placed.

The fix is generally to make sure ex-refs live in the same folder as the main file you are working on, or in a folder below it. That way the file path for an ex-ref can stay relative and won't need to use the name of your Home folder.

Other bugs

Some users have hit problems that are not intentional security changes and are better classified as bugs. If any of these are happening to you, first try a simple restart of your computer. If that doesn't help, reinstalling Google Drive for Desktop is usually the best next step.

• Google Drive seems to be constantly syncing files and limiting your computer's performance.
• Google Drive starts saving files locally that are meant to be saved only in the cloud. With a large folder, this can leave you out of storage space on your computer.
• Google Drive is not reporting the sync status of certain files correctly — files you add to Google Drive in your Finder are not showing up at drive.google.com in your web browser and are not accessible to your colleagues.

What's really going on?

All these changes trace back to a new API for cloud storage providers called File Provider, which Apple first released in macOS 12.1 to integrate cloud file storage more securely and consistently into the operating system. Box responded to Apple's extension change in 2021, but only since September 2022 have Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive rewritten their desktop applications to use the new API.

Cloud file storage solutions that show up as external drives in Finder have been available for years, but they were always a bit of a hack, implemented in different ways on different systems using "kernel" extensions that were allowed to make deep changes to Apple's OS. These hacks were incredibly helpful for users, especially once cloud services figured out how to show you all your files in the cloud without actually downloading them. But kernel extensions were a security problem for Apple: they changed core OS functions and opened up vulnerabilities Apple couldn't cover.

Apple has deprecated support for kernel extensions in general. To keep the popular and useful cloud file storage solutions working, Apple published the File Provider API, which integrates these services at the user level rather than the system level. As a result, the applications that run the interface for these cloud files had to be rebuilt.

Certain changes in functionality are expected and even desired by Apple (like moving files instead of copying them when you drag). Others are user-interface bugs that will hopefully get cleared out as Google keeps updating Google Drive for Desktop.

How do you know if you're on the new version?

If you are running macOS 12.1 or higher (Monterey or Ventura), you are probably already using the most recent version of Google Drive for Desktop and have had these changes applied. The best way to be sure is to check the Google Drive preferences.

1. Click the Google Drive icon in your menu bar.
2. Click the gear icon, then Preferences.
3. Click the gear icon in the window that appears. Here you'll see more detailed preferences for each of the Google accounts you have connected to Google Drive for Desktop.
4. Under "Google Drive streaming location," if the "Change" link is grayed out and you see the notice "Folder location is controlled by macOS," you are working under the new architecture described above.