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Cloud Plugin: Information about Google Drive

Unfortunately, after February 10, 2024 access to Google Drive will only be possible by creating your own client id and client secret, otherwise Google would require a security assessment following the extremely strict OWASP standard. Unfortunately it is impossible for a plugin to follow these rules:

  1. Plugins as such cannot be certified, only applications. Google Drive access would have to be built directly into Total Commander.
  2. OWASP requires to follow very specific rules when developing a program. It cannot be applied to an existing program, so Total Commander would have to be rebuilt from scratch. This is completely impossible within a reasonable time frame.
  3. OWASP rules are very strict, so Total Commander would no longer be able to use third party plugins.
  4. The security assessment would have to be performed by a specialized company, and costs up to $75'000 per year and program (so $150'000 for 32bit+64-bit). This is not sustainable even with a subscription.

In conclusion, access to Google Drive via cloud plugin has become much more complicated.

What are your options now if you need to access data currently stored on Google Drive?

  1. Get your own client ID and client secret as described below,
    or
  2. Install the Google Drive for Windows client,
    or
  3. Move your data to a different cloud service. Total Commander supports Dropbox, Box, Microsoft OneDrive, Yandex Drive and Strato HiDrive,
    or
  4. Migrate your data to your own OwnCloud or NextCloud server and enable WebDAV access, then use our WedDAV plugin. This is very easy to setup when using a Web control panel like Plesk, and it makes you independent from the big cloud services,
    or
  5. Use an SFTP server (file transfer over SSH secure shell) with our SFTP plugin, or a FTPS server (SSL encrypted FTP) with the built-in FTP client

Here are the steps to create your own client id and client secret. Fortunately this needs to be done only once:

  1. Go to https://console.developers.google.com/
  2. Log in with your Google account (doesn't need to be the same as for the cloud connection)
  3. Create a new project by clicking on the top-left combobox (3 dots in a circle) and then on "New project".
  4. Give the project a name and click CREATE.
  5. Click on "+ Enable APIs and Services"
  6. Search for "Google Drive API"
  7. Click "Enable"
  8. Click on "OAuth consent screen" on the left side
  9. Click "Get started"
  10. Set an app name (of your choice)
  11. Choose your e-mail in "User support mail"
  12. Enter your e-mail in "Developer contact information"
  13. Click "Next"
  14. Under "Audience", choose "Internal" if you are in a big company, otherwise "External"
  15. Click "Next"
  16. Enter your e-mail in "Contact information"
  17. Click "I agree" and then "Create"
  18. Under "Metrics", click "Create OAuth Client"
  19. Set Application type to "Desktop app" (name does not matter), NOT to "Android"!
  20. Click "Create"
  21. Click on "Download Json", then "OK"
  22. Click on "Data access"
  23. Click on "Add or remove scopes"
  24. Enable: API: "Google Drive API" Scope: ".../auth/drive"
  25. Click "UPDATE"
  26. Click "Save"
  27. Click "Audience" on the left side
  28. Click "+ Add users"
  29. Enter your own e-mail address which you use for the Google account which you want to access withe the drive plugin.
    If you want to access multiple drive accounts, enter their email addresses all here (up to 100).
  30. Click "Save"
    -> your e-mail should appear under "User information"
  31. Click "ADD" again if the mail wasn't accepted
  32. Make sure to update to the latest cloud plugin from our plugins page
  33. In the connection settings (Alt+Enter on connection), click on the json button (only displayed for Google Drive connections!)
  34. Pick the json file you downloaded above. Alternatively, you can enter client id and client secret separated by a comma

We apologize for the inconvenience.