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On my Windows PC I am allowed to create Google Drive for Desktop (using file mirroring) root folder in c:\users\me, and once done, I can relocate the Desktop, Documents ,Pictures folders within Google Drive for Desktop root folder. Doing so, Google Drive for desktop will sync the above folders to My Drive. The same setup on other PCs, allowed for years to synchronise the same folders, across multiple PCs.

Now the issue: I can't find a way to add my brand new macbook to the group of computers which will synchronize the same data.

Basically, on a mac you cannot use your home folder (for instance /users/me) as the Google Drive for Desktop root. Depending on the attempts made, I get errors ranging from "Can't mount Drive. The mount location is a non-empty directory. Choose a different mount location." to "Can’t sync /Users/me because it contains configuration files which can’t be uploaded.".

In a word, I cannot use the same sync scheme as done with multiple windows computers.

Did someone face and solved this issue?

Macbook M1 on Monterey

Rubén
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Riccardo
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  • No and you can't do the same. Windows home directory is not the same as Unix ones. The issue here is that the configuration and also work files for Google Drive have to go somewhere. In Windows I think they are in /Users/me/AppData and I suspect Google ignores that. Unfortunately Google does not do this for macOS – mmmmmm Dec 05 '21 at 14:27
  • Ironically, on the mac you cannot easily relocate Desktop, Pictures, Music to other folders, otherwise I could create a fully functional Google Drive for Desktop root folder and then relocate those folders inside... – Riccardo Dec 05 '21 at 14:38
  • On the mac you can do that. Create a google drive area anbd have those directories in that. Then delete the ones in the home directory and then create symbolic lionks from the ones in the google drive to the home directory. (This is how dropbox does this) – mmmmmm Dec 05 '21 at 14:40
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    Could you clarify? I thought you cannot delete or move those folders which appear to be special as for the thumbnail which is different from ordinary ones? BTW, will this actually sync my desktop on the mac? This would be perfect... – Riccardo Dec 05 '21 at 14:52
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    BTW there's no way to delete those "special" folders... at least without using root account – Riccardo Dec 05 '21 at 15:32
  • Related: Move 'Pictures', 'Documents', 'Movies' etc folders, Where does Google Drive File Stream store offline files and folders on a Mac? – Rubén Dec 05 '21 at 19:21
  • OK I last tried on Mojave and with Backup and Sync - I just tried with Google Drive - the document says it can backup the special folders - I reinstalled. The desktop app asks you what folders should be backup. I added Desktop and it synced to the servers but not to Google Drive – mmmmmm Dec 05 '21 at 21:40
  • @Rubén The first link is for old Google Drive and for old pre BigSur macOS so is like my comments no help here. – mmmmmm Dec 05 '21 at 21:43
  • @mmmmmm The first link is not about any Google Drive version, it's only about the user folders (Pictures, Documents, etc.) but regarding being about an old OS, while the post is from 2011, I'm wondering if that the way the Mac handles the user folders have changed in M1 / Monterey. – Rubén Dec 05 '21 at 22:20
  • apparently since Big Sur it is discouraged to relocate user blessed folders... So in the end I have adopted a different approach, using Drive in a "backup up by computer" fashion, which will not sync to all computers, until a solid solution is given. Thanks for helping – Riccardo Dec 06 '21 at 17:35

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