ZDrive

A lightweight and easy to use Python library to upload and download contents from Google Drive.

1   What is it

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Google Drive is the most used cloud storage platform. A need for some minimal yet effective tool to transfer contents to and from Drive is important!

There is a number of such libraries already present with Pydrive being the most amazing. Pydrive has a lot of functionalities but there are certain major things that it lacks. The goal of this library is to address the bulk uploading/downloading functionality in a way that is easy-to-use and yet covers the users' requirements.

2   Features

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• Upload folders anywhere in the Drive maintaining the same directory structure as present locally.
• Download folders from anywhere in the Drive to anywhere in the PC maintaining the same directory structure as present in the Drive.
• Download or Upload whole directory in less than 5 lines of code.
• Can sustain minor network interruptions.
• Bulk upload/download made easy.
• Minimal dependencies.
• Easy to use.
• Fast!
• Returns JSON objects

• Support

  • OS Support: Linux, Windows, Mac
  • Language Support: Python 2.x, 3.x

3   Installation

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3.1   Option 1: installing through pip (Recommended)

pypi package link

$ pip install ZDrive

If you are behind a proxy

$ pip --proxy [username:password@]domain_name:port install ZDrive

Note: If you get command not found then $ sudo apt-get install python-pip should fix that

3.2   Option 2: Installing from source (Only if you must)

$ git clone https://github.com/ab-anand/ZDrive.git
$ cd ZDrive/
$ pip install -r requirements.txt
$ python setup.py install

Note: If you get permission denied then $ sudo python setup.py install should fix that

4   Usage

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4.1   Initial Setup

• Follow the article to get your drive-api credentials.
• Once you have the clients-secret.json, rename it to credentials.json and place it in the same folder where you'll be running the script.

4.2   Downloader

• Downloader() allows you to download folder/files from the Drive.
• The output location where the files will get downloaded can be specified too.
• Downloader() maintains the same directory tree structure while downloading from the Drive thus making it convenient to read.
• Google Drive is a semantic (also called tag-based) file system meaning it stores files not based on their location, but based on an ID.
• Semantic file systems allow you to have multiple files with the same name and to have one file appearing in multiple places.
• Thus for performing any action related to a file/folder in Drive, we would need the IDs of the file/folder.
• ZDrive allows you to retrieve a list of files/folders present inside the Drive along with their IDs.
• Downloader() also uses multiprocessing for speeding up the download process.
• Using the Downloader()

>>> from zdrive import Downloader
>>> output_directory = "/home/abhinav/Documents"
>>> d = Downloader()
>>> folder_id = 'XXXX-YYYY-ZZZZ'
>>> d.downloadFolder(folder_id, destinationFolder=output_directory)

• If no destinationFolder is specified, then Downloader() would create a default folder named drive_content and it would download the contents there.
• Also, if the specified destinationFolder doesn't already exist, Downloader() would create the folder first and the perform the downloading.

4.3   Uploader

• Uploader() allows you to upload folder/files from the local PC to drive.
• Uploading can be done from any specified location inside the local PC.
• Data can be uploaded at the ROOT level of the Drive or inside any specific folder in the Drive.
• In case of a minor internet interruption(~10-15 secs) the upload would be paused and once the internet connection is stable. The uploading will get resumed.
• Uploader() also maintains the exact same directory tree structure while uploading from the local PC to Drive.
• The level of child directories to be uploaded is decided by max_depth parameter as shown in the example below.
• By default, max_depth = 5
• Using Uploader()

>>> from zdrive import Uploader
>>> input_directory = "/home/abhinav/Downloads"
>>> u = Uploader()
>>> parent_folder_id = u.createFolder(name="Data")
>>> result = u.uploadFolder(input_directory, max_depth=3, parentId=parent_folder_id)
>>> print(result)

'{
    "files":
        {
            "/Users/abhinavanand/Downloads/test/def.pdf": "1pJNIu-0oyzaUgjLvnf6-3mk81iwLBXyS"
        },
    "folders":
        {
        "/Users/abhinavanand/Downloads/test/test-level-1":
            {
                "files":
                {
                    "/Users/abhinavanand/Downloads/test/test-level-1/abc.pdf": "1YwZs__92yzWdM2e7Nc2atF5lzLnyYV9i"
                },
                "folders": {},
                "id": "1zzh_hGImg94SnzrMC8LdH1vgbO3LMksD"
            }
        }
}'

• If no parentId is specified, then Uploader() would upload the contents from local PC to the ROOT level in Drive.

5   Contributing

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Please refer Contributing page for details

6   Bugs

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Please report the bugs at the issue tracker

7   License

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Built with ♥ by Abhinav Anand under the MIT License ©

You can find a copy of the License at http://abhinav.mit-license.org/