MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Is Google Drive OK for Calibre libraries now?

apa64 · 06-25-2017, 08:28 AM

Google Drive user here - some experiences with current versions (Google Drive 2.34.5075.1619, Calibre 3.1.1).

I keep my Calibre library in Google Drive on Windows 10 (have been doing that since I started using Calibre and wasn't aware of these problems). The numbers in parenthesis in the book folder names seem to work OK and are not lost or changed by Drive - BUT I have NOT extensively tested this. I use Calibre only on one computer even though I have Drive synced on multiple.

However, it's best to at least pause the Drive syncing before starting Calibre and managing the library. The Drive sync can't keep up if you make changes to book metadata and cause file/folder name changes. You WILL get "unsyncable file" errors from Drive. When I got these (before I understood that I have to pause sync) I recovered by shutting down Drive and restarting it only after closing Calibre.

So to reiterate earlier posts in the thread: If you want to use Google Drive and want to be sure that there's no risk of lost or corrupted data, keep the Calibre Library in a folder that's not in Google Drive and use some other tool to sync with the Drive folder after closing Calibre. If you don't mind that you'll probably have to reimport or fix a book manually at some point (or worst case, corrupt the whole library), AT LEAST pause the sync before using Calibre.

And thanks for the thread, good information and warnings here.

06-25-2017, 08:28 AM	#35
apa64 Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2016 Device: Kobo Glo HD	Google Drive user here - some experiences with current versions (Google Drive 2.34.5075.1619, Calibre 3.1.1). I keep my Calibre library in Google Drive on Windows 10 (have been doing that since I started using Calibre and wasn't aware of these problems). The numbers in parenthesis in the book folder names seem to work OK and are not lost or changed by Drive - BUT I have NOT extensively tested this. I use Calibre only on one computer even though I have Drive synced on multiple. However, it's best to at least pause the Drive syncing before starting Calibre and managing the library. The Drive sync can't keep up if you make changes to book metadata and cause file/folder name changes. You WILL get "unsyncable file" errors from Drive. When I got these (before I understood that I have to pause sync) I recovered by shutting down Drive and restarting it only after closing Calibre. So to reiterate earlier posts in the thread: If you want to use Google Drive and want to be sure that there's no risk of lost or corrupted data, keep the Calibre Library in a folder that's not in Google Drive and use some other tool to sync with the Drive folder after closing Calibre. If you don't mind that you'll probably have to reimport or fix a book manually at some point (or worst case, corrupt the whole library), AT LEAST pause the sync before using Calibre. And thanks for the thread, good information and warnings here.