List of Google Drive compatibility issues

google-drive

Is there a list of compatibility issues?

Has anyone any information on compatibility issues between Google Drive and other Mac software?

I would like to use Google Drive for Google Docs support, though I find it disappointing right now. Google Drive has been so troublesome that I had to abandon it and use Dropbox only instead.

My problems with Google Drive include:

  • regular crashes
  • losing all file and folder aliases (turned into blank files)
  • several formats where the file might get erased, i.e. turned into a 0 kb file (seems to affect resource forks for .webloc .textclipping .pictclipping)
  • long, buggy syncs that renamed several hundreds of files and folders (out of a 50GB folder) to WhateverName (1) – sometimes as a duplicate copy of the original, sometimes not.

Some of these crashes seem related to GitHub for Mac, perhaps because of swaps between visible and invisible files when switching branches.

Other crashes could relate to my use of TotalFinder, an application that modifies the Finder.

Do you have more information on such a problem?

My SE and Google searches were inconclusive.

Best Answer

I emailed Google and got a few clues from them:

  • Google does not track software incompatibilities, so there is no way to know if TotalFinder is responsible for the random " (1)" file duplications. I suspect it's not.
  • Google Drive does not support resource forks or aliases. Dropbox has the same limitation, but it does not destroy the files like Google Drive does.

I have briefly documented the issues here.

My final word is that Dropbox is safer to use than Google Drive, and that both are limited in such a way that they cannot act as perfect substitutes to external hard drive backups.

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