Open Drive is an unofficial Google Drive Linux client written in Electron that allows automatic synchronization between files, system notifications and runs in the system tray.
ODrive hides the complexity of synchronizing files and documents between Google Drive and your local Linux machine, including Ubuntu.
It supports Windows, Mac OS and Linux (Ubuntu). If you’re a Ubuntu user and with a Google Drive account, and you want to automatically synchronize your data, including changes, then you might want to take a look at Open Drive.
There are other online storage service that works with Ubuntu, but I prefer Google Drive since you get about 15GB free.
If you’re not aware, there are no office Google Drive clients for Linux systems, including Ubuntu. So you will want to use third-party tools, like ODrive to back up and synchronize your content there.
This brief tutorial shows students and new users how to install and configure ODrive on Ubuntu to sync your data to Google Drive automatically.To get Ubuntu to automatically sync to Google Drive via ODrive, follow the steps below:
Option 1: Install ODrive Deb
There are multiple ways to install Open Drive Linux client on Ubuntu. You can either use its .DEB file and install or use Snap package management.
You can find the latest releases from this Github page.
Visit its download page and choose the package with the .deb extension to download and install.
Once downloaded, go to your ~/Downloads folder and run the executable to install. Right-click the downloaded file and select
Open With Software Install
That should Open Ubuntu Software Center. From there click Install to initial the installation process.
When prompted for your password type it and continue with the installation.
Once the installation is complete, go to the Activities Overview and search for ODrive. then select and launch.
The first you open the app, it should prompt to configure and authenticate to your Google Drive. Click Next to begin.
Sign into Google and Allow the apps to connect to your drive.
Connect to Google Drive and account and specify the local folder to use to synchronization.
When you’re done, click Synchronize.
That should immediately start synchronizing your Google Drive content locally. Future changes to your Google Drive will automatically be reflected locally.
Option 2: Install ODrive via Snap
If you rather install ODrive client via Snap, then use the commands below…
Snaps are containerized software packages that are simple to create and install… It’s a new way to manage packages on Linux systems and is supported by the top Linux distributions…
It’s probably the easiest way to install and manage packages on Linux systems, including Ubuntu…
To install ODrive via Snap, run the commands below
sudo apt install snapd sudo snap install odrive-unofficial
That should install ODrive on Ubuntu.
Now navigate to your home folder and locate Google Drive. In it you should find your Google Drive content.
Congratulations! You have learned how to setup ODrive to automatically backup your content to Google Drive online.
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