How to install Google Drive on Ubuntu – Grive2

Due to Google’s changing API you might be having problem during installation of Google Drive (Grive). Here’s how to install Google Drive on Ubuntu.

You can find video tutorial on this new link: How to install Google Drive Grive2 on Ubuntu

Terminal commands to install Google Drive on Ubuntu –  Grive2

To install Grive2 in Ubuntu, Linux Mint and derivatives by using the main WebUpd8 PPA, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install grive

Yes, It is true that there isn’t a native google drive client for linux yet, so you couldn’t get app on Software Center. And ways to install in 12.04 and 14.04 are somewhat different.

• supports the new Drive REST API
• added partial sync
• major code refractoring: a lot of dead code removed, JSON-C is not used any more, API-specific code is split from non-API-specific
• some stability fixes
• slightly reduce number of syscalls when reading local files
• bug fixes

Also, just like the old app, Grive2 does NOT support:

• continuously waiting for changes in file system or in Google Drive to occur and upload. A sync is only performed when you run Grive, and it calculates checksums for all files every time;
• symbolic links;
• Google documents.

Using Google Drive on Linux – Grive2

~$ mkdir -p ~/grive
~$ cd ~/grive
~$ grive -a

After running the command above, an URL should be displayed in the terminal – copy this URL and paste it in a web browser. In the newly loaded page, you’ll be asked to give Grive permission to access your Google Drive and after clicking “Allow access”, an authentication code will be displayed – copy this code and paste it in the terminal where you ran Grive2.

Now to sync Google Drive folder every time, go to that folder and run grive.

Reference: How to install Google Drive Grive2 on Ubuntu By: Luzan Baral