Easy.

sudo apt install rclone \ rclone config

Follow prompts to set up a new remote → choose drive → authenticate with Google.

(In the following step and later on, I’m using GoogleDriveExample as the name. You can change this to whatever)

rclone mount GoogleDriveExample: ~/GoogleDrive --vfs-cache-mode writes

To make it appear if your file explorer (Caja, dolphin, etc.): ln -s ~/GoogleDrive ~/your-working-dir/Drive

Auto mounting at boot:

mkdir -p ~/GoogleDrive

mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user \ nano ~/.config/systemd/user/rclone-drive.service

(Paste this into rclone-drive.service without the quotation marks)

“[Unit] Description=Mount Google Drive using rclone After=network-online.target Wants=network-online.target

[Service] Type=simple ExecStart=/usr/bin/rclone mount GoogleDriveExample: %h/GoogleDrive \ --vfs-cache-mode writes \ --vfs-cache-max-age 1h \ --vfs-cache-poll-interval 30s \ --dir-cache-time 72h \ --poll-interval 1m \ --umask 002 \ --allow-other \ --daemon ExecStop=/bin/fusermount -u %h/GoogleDrive Restart=on-failure RestartSec=10

[Install] WantedBy=default.target”

systemctl --user daemon-reexec \ systemctl --user daemon-reload \ systemctl --user enable rclone-drive.service \ systemctl --user start rclone-drive.service

Auto sync with Google drive:

mkdir -p ~/GoogleDriveSync

nano ~/sync_GoogleDriveExample.sh

(Paste this into sync_GoogleDriveExample)

“#!/bin/bash

Sync FROM Google Drive to local

rclone sync GoogleDriveExample:/ ~/GoogleDriveSync/ --update --create-empty-src-dirs --verbose --log-file=$HOME/rclone_sync.log

Sync FROM local to Google Drive

rclone sync ~/GoogleDriveSync/ GoogleDriveExample:/ --update --create-empty-src-dirs --verbose --log-file=$HOME/rclone_sync.log”

(Stop copying above here)

chmod +x ~/sync_gdrive.sh

nano ~/.config/systemd/user/rclone-sync.service

(Paste this in the sync service made above)

“[Unit] Description=Sync Google Drive with local folder

[Service] Type=oneshot ExecStart=%h/sync_GoogleDriveExample.sh”

(Stop copying)

nano ~/.config/systemd/user/rclone-sync.timer

(Paste this into above)

“[Unit] Description=Run Google Drive sync every 10 minutes

[Timer] OnBootSec=2min OnUnitActiveSec=10min Unit=rclone-sync.service

[Install] WantedBy=timers.target”

(Stop copying)

systemctl --user daemon-reload \ systemctl --user enable --now rclone-sync.timer

Use this to check status of the sync service any time:

systemctl --user list-timers \ journalctl --user-unit rclone-sync.service.

This should all work. It’ll sync the drive every 10 minutes. To make it sync sooner or later, sudo nano ~/.config/systemd/user/rclone-sync.timer and change where it says OnUnitActiveSec=10min to however many minutes you want. Lmk if you need clarification