pysync

pysync is a fast google drive syncing script for Linux

This is not a background sync script - it is currently intended for use with user confirmation

pysync is similar to drive by odeke-em, but is much faster, thanks mostly to parallelism and(probably) the more recent API used

Google Credentials

• First and foremost, this app is not yet verified by Google. Therefore, you can't give the code permission to access and modify your drive.
• For the code to access your drive you'll have to create your own credentials.
• You will make your own "project" and make yourself a test user.
• Unfortunately, tutorials on this are rather hideous so please follow this step by step guide. This is up to date as of June 2022
  • Go to https://console.cloud.google.com/
  • Click on "Select a project" towards the top left(If you already have a project selected, it will say the name of that project instead)
  • Click on "NEW PROJECT"
  • Pick a name(pysync)
  • Select the project
  • In a new tab, go to this link to enable Google Drive API for this project
  • Click "ENABLE"
  • Go back to the previous tab
  • Click the 3 line burger icon on the top left
  • Under "APIs & Services", click "Credentials"
  • Click "CREATE CREDENTIALS"(towards the top)
  • Click "OAuth client ID"
  • Click "CONFIGURE CONSENT SCREEN"
  • Click "External"
  • Enter any App name(pysync), a user support email and developer email(any email address will do)
  • Click "SAVE AND CONTINUE"
  • Click "ADD OR REMOVE SCOPES"
  • Search for "Google drive API" in the search bar(next to the word "Filter")
  • Now there should be a list of 16 options, each of them representing a certain amount of permission
  • Tick the box on the one that says ".../auth/drive" under "Scope"(the 2nd one, it also says "See, edit, create, and delete all of your Google Drive files")
  • Scroll down a bit and click "UPDATE"
  • There should now be a corresponding entry under "Your sensitive scopes"
  • Click "SAVE AND CONTINUE"
  • Click "ADD USERS"
  • Enter the gmail address for the google drive that you're trying to sync
  • Click "SAVE AND CONTINUE"
  • Go back to the Credentials tab on the left
  • Click "CREATE CREDENTIALS" and "OAuth client ID"(just like before)
  • Select "Desktop app" for Application type, and enter any Name(pysync)
  • Click "CREATE"
  • You'll be prompted with a screen, click "DOWNLOAD JSON"
  • Rename the file to client_secrets.json and copy this file into ./pysync/data/

Requirements

• python3.8+

• json-minify, python-dateutil, send2trash, google-api-python-client and google-auth-oauthlib

• pysync will detect missing packages and install them automatically with pip.

• a folder at ~/gdrive to sync with (you can change the location in ./pysync/data/Options.json)

• client_secret.json created using the procedure above and placed in ./pysync/data/

• xdg-open(used for opening gdoc files by double clicking), gnome-terminal or xfce4-terminal(for a quick restart of the syncing process). These are not essential for other functions of pysync

Usage

MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR GOOGLE DRIVE FOLDER BEFORE RUNNING THIS!

• cd ./pysync-master
• python3 pysync --diff
• (optional)python3 pysync --modify
• finally: python3 pysync --commit

Some settings can be configured in Options.json.

Current features

• Detect differences quickly, depending mostly on the size of the google drive and sometimes the disk read speed(15-20 seconds for ~6000 files)
• The user can then choose which files to push/pull(upload/download)
• Applies the chosen operations in parallel(40 at the same time by default)
• For Google Docs, Google Sheets and Google Slides etc, download an executable text file that links to the file

Known issues

• Ext3/4 file systems don't allow folders and files with the same name but it is allowed on Google drive. pysync will reject these files. You can avoid this problem with Capitalizations.
• Forced paths(specified in Options.json) don't behave correctly when a forced path contains another forced path
• Having multiple copies of local files corresponding to the same Google doc file may cause issues

Current plans

• Background syncing and maybe a GUI, similar to Google's Windows/macOs app, is the long term goal

Contributing

Any feedback or help is greatly appreciated!

Contact me at kenivia.fan@gmail.com