Issues on G-Drive Desktop after upgrade to MacOS Monterrey

[BoI_Admin]

Some users of my organization started to have issues on Google Drive Desktop after they upgraded the MacOS to Monterrey:

• when moving files between folders, instead of moving them Drive actually copies them
• full scale previews are not possible anymore (see attached screenshot)

Did anybody have the same issues? Any possible fixes?

[icrew]

If you do a search for:

       macOS drive

Here on GCC, it seems that some relevant threads pop up. In short, it seems that Apple has been making some real changes to how they support Drive for Desktop and similar apps from Dropbox, Box, etc. in recent OS versions. And it seems that the Drive for Desktop team is busy updating their product in response to those changes. Based on experience with similar changes in the past, my guess is that it’ll be a year or two before the dust fully settles. (Changes related to file system stuff can’t be rushed, as bugs can easily equal data loss!)

Not a great answer, but hope it helps a little. 

Ian

[BoI_Admin]

Many thanks for the inputs @icrew 

[JasonTM1]

All of the files in that folder are 'online only' so there is only a thumbnail available to preview. Quicklook does not cause Drive for Desktop to download the original file the way opening it would. Dropbox behaves the same way with streaming files vs local files. If you set the folder to "Available offline" so that local copies are downloaded then Quicklook will work as expected. Obviously this could cause storage issues on the local machine.

As for the 'copying' instead of 'moving' files between folders. Because Drive for Desktop mounts your Google Drive in the OS you get the same behavior as any other mounted drive. The default behavior when dragging files between drives is a 'copy' not a 'move'. Holding down the command key will turn the drag into a 'move' and you'll see the small plus(+) sign disappear from the file(s) you're dragging. I see this most often when dragging files from my Desktop to my Google Drive in the Finder. For comparison, Dropbox puts a copy of synced files in your home folder. So dragging files between your Desktop and Dropbox would default to a 'move' since they are on the same drive.

Hope this helps.

[BoI_Admin]

Much appreciated @JasonTM1 

For the "copying" instead of "moving" you are 100% right. 

For the Preview, before the MacOS update t Monterrey, when hitting the space bar on a file you had a full scale preview (image in its full size), however now after the OS upgrade the preview only shows a thumbnail... So there is certainly something that changed.

[JasonTM1 · Accepted solution]

Does Quicklook work if you set the file or its folder to "Available offline"?

BTW, I was reading another thread about File Provider(MacOS feature) support being added to Drive for Desktop. It sounds like this will change the way Google Drive is accessed by the OS which will change the default dragging behavior from 'copy' back to 'move'. I'm running v58 but do not see it yet. Check out this post..
MacOS File Provider Support 
and these two relevant articles where the feature is discussed, the second link specifically calls out the move vs copy change in the drop down detail.
Update for Mac Users 
Use File Provider with Drive for Desktop 

[BoI_Admin]

Yes Quicklook works fine and previews the file in its full size when file or folder are set to "Available offline" BUT it also works when "Available offline" is OFF on MacOS BigSur, whereas on MacOS Monterrey it doesn't 🙂

[JasonTM1]

Interesting for sure. Maybe this new File Provider support being rolled out in Drive for Desktop will cause Quicklook to behave as it did previously. It would be helpful for us as well.

[BoI_Admin]

100% - Many thanks @JasonTM1 

[kobbc]

Yes, i have the same problem after updating to Monterrey and the latest Drive.dmg not sure if is it from apple's end or google's end problem. did you have the solution eventually? 

[Tom_Sch]

We see this in our company. 2 out of 20 users are using the new way. Not a big issue in general, but I haven't seen any communication from Google about this. One thing I don't like about it. If a download takes a bit longer you get a message that you have to confirm. This is interrupting the workflow. Wonder if Google is talking to users from different industries and how they use their tools. This should be done in a different way.  

BTW you don't have to set a file offline. If you download it you can use QL. If I would take our Drive offline I would need a bigger SSD 🙂 

[maiconza]

same problem Here.

Monterey 12.6 

Gdrive Versão: 64.0.4.0 (Apple Silicon)

[Tom_Sch]

I have no idea how Google is rolling out this change. Currently we are a team of about 20 people and just 2 of us had to make that switch. All others are still using the mounted network drive. 

[DavidEchoic]

I've also experienced this migration. I'm on Monterey 12.6. 

I hate it. I work with large movie files day to day and this inability to preview files directly makes my work flow incredibly slow.

I do not understand how this benefits the user? Why have these changes been made? And will it ever change back to the streaming cloud service I knew and loved.

Right now I'm looking into other solutions because Google Drive will not work for my business running like this.

Any advice? Thanks 

[fede_lang]

Did you find any other solution? I just moved less than 6 months ago most of my workflow to mac and now it sucks!!! 

As you say, not having the stream function defeats the purpose!! The app was even named "google file stream"!! What is going on!?

[Tom_Sch]

Is Google Drive for Desktop not working at all for you @fede_lang? We have a few users that aren't complaining at all. Everything works. I do have some issues, but streaming is working.

[diremouse]

It's 2023 and this is still a big issue (running Ventura 13.1). Not being able to preview with quicklook is a major pain. Setting all my folders to "Work offline" defeats the entire purpose of file streaming with Google Drive for Desktop. I hope somebody is working toward a fix. This used to work like a dream before the breaking Monterey update.

[fede_lang]

Same issue, did you find a work around or another software to fix this? Or maybe another service apart from google?

[icrew]

Maybe (I haven’t tried them myself) https://mountainduck.io or https://www.expandrive.com/desktop/ would work better?

Hope that helps,

Ian

[HouleD]

Would reverting to Big Sur solve the issue? I use QL multiple times a day and I hate not having a full preview. 

[icrew]

I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner: there are (at least) two other products on the market that support "mounting" Google Drive on MacOS. See https://mountainduck.io and https://www.expandrive.com/desktop/. I haven't tried them myself, but maybe they'd work better in this case?

Cheers,

Ian

[JasonTM1]

If Apple does deprecate kernel extensions I wonder if it will impact these apps. I have no idea how their file system mounting works.

This excellent overview article from Tidbits mentions that OneDrive allows the cache to be located on an external drive even if the "sync root" remain in ~/Library/CloudServices. Perhaps Google will add this functionality to Drive for Desktop if it is a good long term solution for those with large file sets.