Google Drive Not Syncing on Mac? Try These Fixes

You drag a presentation into your Google Drive folder, and it just sits with the spinning sync icon. Or the menu bar shows “Unable to connect” even though Safari can reach Google fine. Or your Mac says it’s syncing but Drive on the web doesn’t show your latest file.

Google Drive for desktop (the Mac client, formerly “Backup and Sync,” before that “Drive File Stream”) has its own quirks. Here’s the troubleshooting sequence that resolves the common cases on macOS Sonoma 14 and Sequoia 15.

Step 1: Check Google Drive’s status

Click the Google Drive icon in the menu bar. The dropdown shows current state:

• “Sync complete” → working.
• “Syncing” → in progress.
• “Sync paused” → manually paused or auto-paused.
• “Some files couldn’t be synced” → click for details.
• “Unable to connect” → network or auth problem.

Also click the gear → Activity to see per-file sync status.

Step 2: Quit and relaunch Google Drive

Click menu bar icon → gear → Quit. Wait ten seconds. Relaunch from Applications.

If Quit doesn’t actually exit (the menu bar icon stays), force it:

killall "Google Drive"
killall "Drive File Stream"

(Older installs are named “Drive File Stream”; newer ones “Google Drive.”)

Then relaunch. About a third of stuck-sync cases clear here.

Step 3: Sign out and back in

Menu bar icon → gear → Preferences → Account → “Disconnect account.” Restart Google Drive. Sign in again.

If your Google account has 2FA, enterprise SSO, or context-aware policies, the new sign-in re-evaluates them. Sync that was blocked by a stale auth token resumes.

Step 4: Check the File Provider extension

Modern Google Drive on Mac uses Apple’s File Provider framework. Confirm it’s loaded:

pluginkit -m | grep -i google

You should see entries like com.google.drivefs.fileprovider.

If not loaded, reinstall Google Drive. Drag the app to Trash, download a fresh copy from drive.google.com, install.

Skip the manual huntSweep finds the cached configs, leftover daemons, and stale prefs across your Mac. Download Sweep free →

Step 5: Check disk space

Google Drive needs free local disk for its cache. With “Stream” mode, files are cloud-only by default but require scratch space for downloads. With “Mirror” mode, every file lives locally.

Apple menu → About This Mac → Storage Settings. Under 10% free is too tight. Free up space if needed.

Step 6: Check the cache size

Google Drive’s local cache lives in:

~/Library/Application Support/Google/DriveFS/

This can grow to many GB over time. If it’s filling your disk, clear it:

1. Quit Google Drive.
2. Move ~/Library/Application Support/Google/DriveFS/ to the desktop.
3. Relaunch Google Drive. Sign in. The cache rebuilds — slowly at first, then normal.

If working fine after a few hours, drag the desktop copy to Trash.

Step 7: Check for unsupported file paths

Google Drive’s File Provider implementation has its own path limits and forbidden characters. Common rejections:

• File names containing / or other Unix-special characters.
• Files with names matching .DS_Store, Icon\r, or other macOS metadata files.
• Path total length > 32K characters (rare but possible with deep nesting).
• Symlinks (Drive doesn’t follow them).

Check the Activity panel for files marked as “Couldn’t sync.” Rename or move them.

Step 8: Restart the macOS file provider services

Sometimes the system-wide File Provider gets stuck. Restart it:

sudo launchctl kickstart -k system/com.apple.fileproviderd

This reloads the File Provider daemon for all apps using it (Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, iCloud).

Step 9: Check for File Provider conflicts

Multiple cloud sync apps registering File Provider extensions can interfere:

pluginkit -m | grep -i fileprovider

If you have stale extensions from apps you’ve uninstalled (old Box clients, retired Sync.com clients), they sit around even after the parent app is gone.

Removing them properly requires removing the parent app cleanly. Sweep’s uninstaller catches File Provider extensions that drag-to-trash leaves behind.

Reclaim what stale apps left behindOld cloud sync clients leave File Provider extensions, helper tools, and configs behind. Sweep finds them all. Free for macOS →

Step 10: Check the network

Google Drive needs to reach drive.google.com, *.google.com, and Google’s CDN. A corporate VPN, restrictive firewall, or captive portal can block them.

Test:

curl -I https://drive.google.com
curl -I https://www.googleapis.com

Both should return success status. If they don’t, Google Drive can’t sync.

VPNs that intercept all traffic — including their leftover system extensions — can block Drive even when the VPN app isn’t running. Check:

systemextensionsctl list

Remove old VPN extensions if any.

Step 11: Check for Drive quota

Open drive.google.com → bottom-left storage indicator. If you’re at 100%, uploads silently fail.

Free space by:

• Deleting large items in Drive.
• Removing files from Trash (Drive trash, not Mac trash).
• Reviewing items shared with you that count against your quota.

Or upgrade to Google One.

Step 12: Check shared drive permissions

If sync fails for a shared drive (formerly Team Drive), you may have lost access. The Activity panel will show “no longer have access” for those files.

Contact the shared drive admin to verify your access.

Step 13: Check for “Mirror” vs “Stream” issues

Google Drive offers two sync modes:

• Stream: files are cloud-only by default, downloaded on demand. Saves disk.
• Mirror: every Drive file lives locally. Uses a lot of disk.

If you switched modes, Drive needs to re-process everything. This can take hours and look like sync is stuck.

Menu → gear → Preferences → Google Drive → check current mode. Don’t switch repeatedly; let one mode finish before changing.

Step 14: Update Google Drive

Old versions of Google Drive for desktop have known issues:

• Versions before 84 had File Provider issues on macOS 14+.
• Version 89 fixed memory leaks that caused sync to slow over time.

Update via menu → gear → Preferences → About → version info. If outdated, download fresh from drive.google.com.

Step 15: Reinstall Google Drive

If nothing works:

1. Quit Google Drive.
2. Drag Google Drive.app to Trash.
3. Move these to the desktop (not delete, just move):
   • ~/Library/Application Support/Google/DriveFS/
   • ~/Library/Caches/com.google.drivefs/
   • ~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.google.drivefs/
4. Empty Trash.
5. Download Google Drive fresh, install, sign in.

This is the closest to a factory reset of the client.

A truly clean uninstall also removes launch agents (~/Library/LaunchAgents/), the File Provider extension, login items, and any orphaned helper processes. That’s where Sweep’s uninstaller is more thorough than the manual approach.

When Drive is just slow

A few realities:

• Drive’s first sync after install is slow — multiple GB downloads even in Stream mode.
• Shared drives with millions of files take days to fully index.
• Files Google considers “abuse” (per its automated detection) silently fail to sync. Check drive.google.com for warnings on your account.
• Files larger than 5 TB exceed Drive’s per-file limit.

Most “Google Drive not syncing” issues are fixed by Step 2 (relaunch), Step 6 (cache reset), or Step 9 (File Provider cleanup). If you’ve worked through this list and sync is still broken, contact Google Workspace support — corporate accounts have admin tools that can clear server-side locks.