Google Drive Document Access
Overview
Search for and download documents from Google Drive using rclone. Google Docs are automatically exported as Markdown for easy reading and processing.
Scripts are located at scripts/ .
Reference Documentation:
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scripts/ — Shell scripts for search, download, and sync operations
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digital-science-reference.md — Digital Science documentation links
Authentication: See the Authentication section in digital-science-reference.md for rclone setup. The remote must be named gdrive .
Quick Start
Check rclone is configured
./scripts/check_rclone.sh
Search for files
./scripts/search_gdrive.sh "meeting notes"
Search shared files
./scripts/search_gdrive.sh "standup" --shared
Download a file (exports Google Docs as Markdown)
./scripts/download_gdrive.sh "Documents/Report" ./output
Download by file ID
./scripts/download_gdrive.sh --id "FILE_ID" ./output
Download matching shared files
./scripts/download_gdrive.sh --shared --include "pattern*" ./output
Common Tasks
Task Command
Check setup ./scripts/check_rclone.sh
Search files ./scripts/search_gdrive.sh "pattern"
Search shared files ./scripts/search_gdrive.sh "pattern" --shared
Download file ./scripts/download_gdrive.sh "path/to/file" ./output
Download by ID ./scripts/download_gdrive.sh --id "FILE_ID" ./output
Download folder ./scripts/download_gdrive.sh "Folder" ./output --bulk
Download shared files ./scripts/download_gdrive.sh --shared --include "pattern*" ./output
Limit downloads ./scripts/download_gdrive.sh --shared --include "pattern*" ./output --limit 20
Export Formats
Google Docs can be exported in different formats:
Format Flag Use Case
Markdown --format md (default) Easy reading and processing
Word --format docx
Office compatibility
PDF --format pdf
Final documents
Plain text --format txt
Minimal formatting
HTML --format html
Web content
Example: ./scripts/download_gdrive.sh "Report" ./output --format docx
File ID Extraction
Extract file IDs from Google Drive URLs:
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https://docs.google.com/document/d/FILE_ID/edit → use FILE_ID
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https://drive.google.com/file/d/FILE_ID/view → use FILE_ID
Preview Before Download
Use dry-run to see what would be downloaded:
./scripts/download_gdrive.sh "Large Folder" ./output --bulk --dry-run
Direct rclone Commands
For advanced use cases:
rclone ls gdrive:"Documents" # List files rclone lsjson gdrive:"path" --no-traverse # Get file info as JSON rclone sync gdrive:"Source" ./local --drive-export-formats md # Sync folder
Troubleshooting
Issue Solution
"remote not configured" Run rclone config to set up gdrive remote
"Cannot connect" Run rclone config reconnect gdrive:
Empty search results Check path spelling; try searching from root
File not downloading Verify file permissions; check if file is in Trash
Shared files not found Use --shared flag
Too many files Use --limit N to download only N most recent