How to Set Up Google Drive Connections

Below you find a step by step guide, if you prefer you can watch our Google Drive video tutorial.

To connect to Google Drive, make sure you have the following:

1. A Google Drive account;
2. Your Google account (typically your Gmail email address);
3. Your Google account password.

Note: If FileZilla Pro is configured to save passwords protected by a master password, (see Protect Passwords with a Master Password ),you’ll only need to authenticate it for use with Google Drive once; it will save the access token for future connections.

Configuring FileZilla Pro for Google Drive

Please follow the next steps to configure FileZilla Pro to connect to Google Drive.

1. In the menu bar, click on File › Site Manager…. See Using Site Manager for more details.
2. Click on New Site.
3. Select Google Drive from the Protocol drop down list.
4. Optionally enter a login as a hint for Google authentication.
Click on Connect.

5. Google mandates that you acknowledge reading FileZilla Pro’s statement regarding adherence to GoogleAPI Services User Data Policy.



Click on OK to accept and select the Do not show again checkbox to prevent the same pop-up from appearing in the future.

6. FileZilla Pro will open a Google Drive authorization page in a browser window. This is a step required by Google, to ensure that you permit FileZilla Pro to access your files on the cloud. If you’re not already logged in to Google Drive, you’ll need to login before you can authorize FileZilla Pro to access your files.



Check the option Select All. Click on Continue.

7. FileZilla Pro will check the server’s TLS certificate and display a window like this:

Check the server certificate details displayed – Common Name should be googleapis.com and Organization should be Google LLC. Click on OK .

You will see the following directories:

• My Drive, with your personal drive content.
• Shared with Me, with items shared with you by other users.
• The Shared Drives directory has content only if your account belongs to a Google Workspaces (formerly G Suite) edition, otherwise is empty. You may need to ask your organization administrator to grant you access to a shared drive.

You can now transfer files between your local machine and your Google Drive.

Can I move files directly between an FTP server and Google Drive?

Not directly — there’s no server-to-server transfer that skips your computer, in FileZilla Pro or any other client. Files still have to pass through your machine: download from your FTP server, then upload to Google Drive. What FileZilla Pro removes is the friction around that round trip. Save both connections in Site Manager — your FTP or SFTP server as one site, Google Drive as another — and switch between them in the same window, so the download-then-upload takes a few clicks instead of needing FileZilla for one half and a separate Google Drive app or browser upload for the other.

Is Google Drive an FTP server? Can I use Google Drive as an FTP server?

No — Google Drive does not speak the FTP protocol, and you can’t point a generic FTP client at a Google Drive address the way you would at an FTP host. That’s exactly the gap FileZilla Pro fills: instead of treating Google Drive as if it were FTP, FileZilla Pro connects to it through Google’s own API, selectable as its own protocol in Site Manager alongside FTP, FTPS, and SFTP. The result looks and behaves like any other saved connection — browse, drag, drop, transfer — even though Google Drive itself has no native FTP interface.

The video tutorial below shows how to connect to Google Drive with FileZilla Pro.

Video tutorial: How to connect to Google Drive

Related Topics:

• How to Share Files with Google Drive
• Google Documents Download
• How to List, Download and Delete File Version
• How to Protect and Recover Lost Passwords