{"slug": "google-drive", "name": "Google Drive", "category": "infra", "category_name": "Infrastructure and DevOps", "description": "", "recommenders": 1, "commenters": 13, "warners": 4, "score": -0.781, "rising": -0.33, "first": "2025-11-16", "latest": "2026-10-29", "why": "", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 7, "compare": 1, "warn": 4}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": false, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "", "icon": false, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Google Drive"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 766906595, "item_id": 47931662, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47931662", "by": "udugadoqehale", "date": "2026-04-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "or a shared Google Drive folder", "excerpt": "Check Wormhole or WeTransfer; you drag, get a link, send it. No account needed. If you're sharing with the same people regularly, just use Telegram (no compression, 2GB limit) or a shared Google Drive folder.", "context": "", "use_case": "regular file sharing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What file sharing apps do you guys use?"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 801092306, "item_id": 50068269, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50068269", "by": "spwa4", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "warn", "quote": "But Google Drive was always the worst part of Google Docs by far (imho).", "excerpt": "This works at least as well on the web as Google docs. Obviously that's without the collaboration features, as well as using your local filesystem instead of Google Drive/Azure Cloud storage. But Google Drive was always the worst part of Google Docs by far (imho). And collaboration ... for my personal office needs ... I sometimes try to do this with my wife and kids, but almost never. Pdfcraft is far superior to all ", "context": "", "use_case": "document storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "An open-source, clean-room reimplementation of Microsoft Word in pure Rust"}, {"id": 791668608, "item_id": 49479288, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49479288", "by": "virtyaluk", "date": "2026-08-28", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Google has put a big-ass plus button and a \"scan document\" button right in the bottom-right corner of the app screen, which effectively prevents me from opening the file menu", "excerpt": "I noticed a long time ago that Google apps are designed by people who never actually use them. Here's one example. I'm a big fan of reading, and it happened that I stack dozens and dozens of books on my GDrive, so naturally I use mobile Google Drive to download and send those books to the reader app on my iDevices. Finished books are renamed to have an exclamation mark at the beginning of the file name - that puts th", "context": "", "use_case": "storing books and sending to reader app", "switched_from": "", "story": "\u201cIt works better in the app\u201d"}, {"id": 780519794, "item_id": 48782487, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48782487", "by": "mieses", "date": "2026-07-03", "stance": "warn", "quote": "you will probably run into conflicts between keepass \"safe save\" and how google drive does file versioning", "excerpt": "How this solves sync seems useful. If you use Google Drive and KeePass clients you will probably run into conflicts between keepass \"safe save\" and how google drive does file versioning, resulting in runaway duplication of your kdbx files. I started using Syncthing and KeePass. File version conflicts are rare but still happen. Including sync in the app seems like a good idea. It would be good to see screenshots of Br", "context": "", "use_case": "syncing KeePass database", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Bramble \u2013 Local-first password manager"}, {"id": 751682178, "item_id": 46980136, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46980136", "by": "rekabis", "date": "2026-02-11", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Google has no qualms about handing over data to US authorities.", "excerpt": "An excellent idea. But I don\u2019t have any kind of a Google account, nor would I want one. Because yes, the video stream is uploaded encrypted, but Google has no qualms about handing over data to US authorities. Encryption can always be trivially broken later with nation-state scale tools. I do have a paid Sync.com account, of about 50Gb, for cloud data under Canadian sovereignty. Yes, the current fascist regime in Amer", "context": "privacy-focused, avoids US providers", "use_case": "cloud storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Building Mockingjay: A Video Recorder for When It Matters Most"}]}], "who": [{"by": "mjcohen", "context": "Android user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50294451", "date": "2026-10-29"}, {"by": "harshalizee", "context": "works in an MS-stack company as a dotnet developer", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50133349", "date": "2026-10-17"}, {"by": "system2", "context": "Windows user with 50+ apps installed", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46799829", "date": "2026-01-28"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["note backup", "documentation", "document storage", "storing books and sending to reader app", "personal file storage", "syncing keepass database"], "compared": [{"slug": "syncthing", "name": "Syncthing", "co": 1, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 2}, {"slug": "dropbox", "name": "Dropbox", "co": 3, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "icloud", "name": "iCloud", "co": 1, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "keepass", "name": "KeePass", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "nextcloud", "name": "Nextcloud", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "google-docs", "name": "Google Docs", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50255161", "title": "Edit an SQLite database in your browser", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50130228", "title": "Microsoft Teams is a red flag", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50050370", "title": "An open-source, clean-room reimplementation of Microsoft Word in pure Rust", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49477600", "title": "\u201cIt works better in the app\u201d", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49267818", "title": "Dropbox, loved by the masses, a shareholder dead end", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48766242", "title": "Show HN: Bramble \u2013 Local-first password manager", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"neutral": 1, "compare": 1}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-02": {"warn": 1}, "2026-03": {"neutral": 2}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"warn": 1}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"warn": 1, "neutral": 2}}, "quotes": [{"id": 804711217, "item_id": 50294451, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50294451", "by": "mjcohen", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I have Note Everything save to Google Drive.", "excerpt": "I use \"Note Everything\" on my Android phone. I found is uses a SQLite db for storing its info. Might try this for extracting the contents if I ever want to move to Apple phone. Just tried it. I have Note Everything save to Google Drive. Extracted that zip file, read it here, saved the text notes as csv, looked at it in txtedit. Great!!!! Could write a gawk program to recreate the notes in directories.", "context": "Android user", "use_case": "note backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Edit an SQLite database in your browser"}, {"id": 802133586, "item_id": 50133349, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50133349", "by": "harshalizee", "date": "2026-10-17", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "We use slack for messaging, Confluence, Wikimedia, and GDrive for documentation", "excerpt": "You would severely limit yourself if you're strict about your list without nuance. GitHub is pretty much bog standard in most companies unless you're working for the few using mercurial, etc. I work in a MS stack and most of your list is untrue for my case. We use slack for messaging, Confluence, Wikimedia, and GDrive for documentation, Google Mail for email, I develop primarily dotnet/C# apps on a MacBook pro M5, ha", "context": "works in an MS-stack company as a dotnet developer", "use_case": "documentation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft Teams is a red flag"}, {"id": 801092306, "item_id": 50068269, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50068269", "by": "spwa4", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "warn", "quote": "But Google Drive was always the worst part of Google Docs by far (imho).", "excerpt": "This works at least as well on the web as Google docs. Obviously that's without the collaboration features, as well as using your local filesystem instead of Google Drive/Azure Cloud storage. But Google Drive was always the worst part of Google Docs by far (imho). And collaboration ... for my personal office needs ... I sometimes try to do this with my wife and kids, but almost never. Pdfcraft is far superior to all ", "context": "", "use_case": "document storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "An open-source, clean-room reimplementation of Microsoft Word in pure Rust"}, {"id": 791668608, "item_id": 49479288, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49479288", "by": "virtyaluk", "date": "2026-08-28", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Google has put a big-ass plus button and a \"scan document\" button right in the bottom-right corner of the app screen, which effectively prevents me from opening the file menu", "excerpt": "I noticed a long time ago that Google apps are designed by people who never actually use them. Here's one example. I'm a big fan of reading, and it happened that I stack dozens and dozens of books on my GDrive, so naturally I use mobile Google Drive to download and send those books to the reader app on my iDevices. Finished books are renamed to have an exclamation mark at the beginning of the file name - that puts th", "context": "", "use_case": "storing books and sending to reader app", "switched_from": "", "story": "\u201cIt works better in the app\u201d"}, {"id": 788290737, "item_id": 49268171, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49268171", "by": "nugzbunny", "date": "2026-08-11", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "My personal Dropbox was replaced by Google Drive, and then by iCloud.", "excerpt": "I used to use Dropbox at work and also personally. Work didn\u2019t like it as Dropbox was new/unknown and eventually banned us from using it. This was about 15 years ago and the only way to share files between colleagues was to manually upload a file to their shared drive (through a browser) and then ask your colleague to go download it. Works Dropbox was replaced by Microsoft. My personal Dropbox was replaced by Google ", "context": "", "use_case": "personal file storage", "switched_from": "Dropbox", "story": "Dropbox, loved by the masses, a shareholder dead end"}, {"id": 780519794, "item_id": 48782487, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48782487", "by": "mieses", "date": "2026-07-03", "stance": "warn", "quote": "you will probably run into conflicts between keepass \"safe save\" and how google drive does file versioning", "excerpt": "How this solves sync seems useful. If you use Google Drive and KeePass clients you will probably run into conflicts between keepass \"safe save\" and how google drive does file versioning, resulting in runaway duplication of your kdbx files. I started using Syncthing and KeePass. File version conflicts are rare but still happen. Including sync in the app seems like a good idea. It would be good to see screenshots of Br", "context": "", "use_case": "syncing KeePass database", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Bramble \u2013 Local-first password manager"}, {"id": 766906595, "item_id": 47931662, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47931662", "by": "udugadoqehale", "date": "2026-04-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "or a shared Google Drive folder", "excerpt": "Check Wormhole or WeTransfer; you drag, get a link, send it. No account needed. If you're sharing with the same people regularly, just use Telegram (no compression, 2GB limit) or a shared Google Drive folder.", "context": "", "use_case": "regular file sharing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What file sharing apps do you guys use?"}, {"id": 760450417, "item_id": 47528151, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47528151", "by": "arjie", "date": "2026-03-26", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I just keep my private notes in my Google Drive", "excerpt": "This is awesome, dude. I love it. One of my personal points of friction is that I want almost all of my life to be public in whichever way it is, but I don't want to subject my friends to that without asking, and my life is pretty intertwined with that of my friends. I suppose I could add a new namespace and protect it, but for now I just keep my private notes in my Google Drive and my public notes on my blog. My blo", "context": "", "use_case": "private notes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Personal Encyclopedias"}, {"id": 755549344, "item_id": 47221834, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47221834", "by": "mdritch", "date": "2026-03-02", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "you could set up a \"team admin\" user on google drive", "excerpt": "you could set up a \"team admin\" user on google drive and then invite your individual team member to that user's files? No matter what service you use, you will always need to set up an admin account", "context": "", "use_case": "nonprofit file sharing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Free Collaboration Tools for Non Profits?"}, {"id": 751682178, "item_id": 46980136, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46980136", "by": "rekabis", "date": "2026-02-11", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Google has no qualms about handing over data to US authorities.", "excerpt": "An excellent idea. But I don\u2019t have any kind of a Google account, nor would I want one. Because yes, the video stream is uploaded encrypted, but Google has no qualms about handing over data to US authorities. Encryption can always be trivially broken later with nation-state scale tools. I do have a paid Sync.com account, of about 50Gb, for cloud data under Canadian sovereignty. Yes, the current fascist regime in Amer", "context": "privacy-focused, avoids US providers", "use_case": "cloud storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Building Mockingjay: A Video Recorder for When It Matters Most"}, {"id": 748797266, "item_id": 46799829, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46799829", "by": "system2", "date": "2026-01-28", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Google Drive that I use to share my KeePass databases (no GDrive on Linux afaik)", "excerpt": ">\"If you're always finding the next reason not to switch, you're not looking for solutions, you're looking for excuses to stay complacent.\" No, my friend. It is not the reason. I have over 50 apps installed, many of which are corporate applications, such as Teams and other Microsoft products. VMwaresing VMWare and WSL foLinux distributionsnux distros. The other things that Linux is missing are ShareX (has flameshot I", "context": "Windows user with 50+ apps installed", "use_case": "sharing KeePass databases", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux"}, {"id": 735716917, "item_id": 45982307, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45982307", "by": "monerozcash", "date": "2025-11-19", "stance": "compare", "quote": "You can probably get away with google drive+rclone+borg/restic/whatever, but it will be rather clunky.", "excerpt": "This needs more information. 5TB is far from \"BIG\" when it comes to cloud backups. You can probably get away with google drive+rclone+borg/restic/whatever, but it will be rather clunky. Backblaze might be a nicer backend to use. I use rsync.net with borg, but not sure about your budget. Their 1TB lifetime plan is very competitive though.", "context": "", "use_case": "backup backend", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What is the current state of the art in BIG (>5TB) cloud backups?"}, {"id": 735121121, "item_id": 45945070, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45945070", "by": "tell_me_whai", "date": "2025-11-16", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use google drive  for most of my admin stuff and their client allows to mount the drive.", "excerpt": "Hi, this looks really cool and its a smarter way to solve an issue I've had for a long time. Couple of questions: 1. My preferred installation method is through `brew`, would you consider adding it as and install option? 2. Any plans of supporting multiple languages? 3. Can it move files to mounted folders? I use google drive for most of my admin stuff and their client allows to mount the drive.", "context": "", "use_case": "admin file storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Floxtop \u2013 Offline Mac app that organizes files and images by meaning"}]}