I just found out Cyberduck can connect to Google Drive, and I got it working through the OAuth login. It’s fine for uploading a few files, but browsing big folders feels slow and I have to download everything before I can edit it. Is this just how it works, or is there a better way to use Google Drive on a Mac?
For this comparison, I’m separating file transfer from everyday file access, then looking at how each option handles Drive folders and whether it fits the other storage I use. I’m not treating “can move a file” as the same thing as “lets me work with that file comfortably.” That distinction matters more to me than a feature list when I’m working on desktop macOS.
My starting constraint is storage. My Google Drive is much bigger than my local SSD, so syncing the whole thing to disk isn’t the arrangement I’m after. I also want to distinguish a separate download step from opening a file through the usual file interface. Those are the practical checks behind my preference, rather than a claim that one approach should suit everybody.
I use mounting CloudMounter for that setup. It presents Google Drive as a regular drive in ile-management Finder, which lets me open and edit files without first downloading them through a separate app. That’s the part that’s made everyday Drive work smoother for me. I’m describing the workflow here, not a measured speed advantage, and I wouldn’t use that experience alone to rank every alternative.
Google’s Drive for desktop is another route, and it works, but its syncing or streaming runs through Google’s own setup. It also only covers Google accounts. For my comparison, those are separate considerations: how files become available and which accounts the arrangement can include. Staying within Google’s app might be fine, but it doesn’t cover the same mix of storage I’m trying to keep together on everyday macOS.
There’s also command-line Rclone, which can mount Google Drive. I’d keep comfort with the command line in the comparison rather than glossing over it. The mounting capability is relevant, but choosing mounting Rclone means being comfortable with that way of working. Mountain Duck mounts Drive as a disk too, and it comes from the Cyberduck team.
That brings me back to why Cyberduck felt frustrating with my Drive folders. It’s a transfer client, good for moving files back and forth, but that isn’t quite the day-to-day access I wanted. Having Drive available through desktop Finder addresses a different part of my routine. My setup doesn’t sync Drive’s contents to disk, which matters given the capacity of my internal SSD.
Beyond Drive, my storage CloudMounter setup lets me add Dropbox and my SFTP server in the same place. There’s optional encryption for sensitive files too.
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Cyberduck should show your Drive folders after a completed login, so an empty window isn’t something you should have to accept because it’s a transfer client. I’d separate @zensocket’s preference for everyday file access from the connection problem here. The detail worth checking is the browser handoff: after granting Google access, you need to approve the browser’s “Open Cyberduck” prompt. Simply switching back to the app doesn’t complete that step.
Try again, and see whether that prompt appears. Check whether you’re not accidentally using the Google account in your browser, e.g., if you have personal and work accounts opened in different incognito tabs, and so on. If you’ve authorized the wrong account, according to the official Cyberduck guide, the only solution is to delete this connection bookmark and reauthorize Cyberduck on the correct account. In the browser, you should sign out and back in once again. Then, check if after connecting, you see My Drive, Shared Drives, or Shared with me instead of all files on the first page.
Even if none of these solutions works, I’d still recommend using CloudMounter as an alternative. I don’t know about your experience, but I’d be irritated if the actual reason for failure was that I missed an authorization pop-up in my browser by mistake. Can you check whether Cyberduck actually waits for authorization or if after successful authorization, Cyberduck opens an empty folder?
Clear any text in Cyberduck’s search field before retrying the login. That field filters the file listing, so a search with no matches can make a populated folder look empty. @kevin86’s authorization check makes sense, but I’d rule out a display filter before deleting bookmarks. I’d use CloudMounter if switching apps, but I wouldn’t make that decision based on an empty window alone.
The missing information is whether Cyberduck finishes loading or there is some message about directory-listing error. Before trying to establish the connection again, I would attempt to open it once and check if there is any message saying anything, including what is behind the Details button. I would not assume that an empty file pane means Google rejected the login.
There’s a reason to separate those cases: Cyberduck documents Google Drive request limits that can produce a “403 Forbidden” response with “Rate Limit Exceeded” in the details. That would point somewhere different from the browser handoff @kevin86 described. The full wording matters more than the number alone. For that particular error, Cyberduck’s documented approach is to enable “Repeat failed networking tasks” under Preferences → Connection and set a delay. I’d only take that route if the message actually identifies a rate limit.
For now, I’d keep the troubleshooting narrow:
- Record your Cyberduck and macOS versions.
- Make one connection attempt after clearing the search field.
- Note whether loading stops, keeps going, or ends with an error.
- Copy the error wording, if there is any, rather than posting just a screenshot of the blank pane.
I’d hold off on deleting credentials or trying another client until you have that result. @dilit25008’s filter check is a sensible low-risk starting point, but after that I’d rather collect a specific symptom than change several settings at once. If you do share a screenshot or diagnostic excerpt, remove account addresses, private filenames, and any authorization codes or tokens first.
I would not make a second attempt to upload your files to see whether that would populate it, either, since you can still see them in the browser. I would just leave those originals alone while figuring out what needs to be done with Cyberduck’s access. In this state, ‘the listing failed’ and ‘the connection succeeded but returned nothing’ are still two possible problems, and I’d want to differentiate between these two before picking one out to address.
Quit Cyberduck completely and re-open the bookmark before attempting anything else. Occasionally the token from the browser arrives correctly, but the open pane never refreshes, giving the appearance of an empty pane when the attempt was successful. If this occurs twice in a row I’d give up and instead try to mount the account through CloudMounter instead of trying to troubleshoot which step failed.
You could end up just redoing a working login and not getting any closer to solving the slow browsing as such. I am a bit thrown off by the empty window troubleshooting here because, according to your post, you did connect and can upload files (unless there is another symptom not included in the excerpt). I would not delete the bookmark and start over with the authorization, and waiting on a big folder to load is what you wanted help with, most likely.
What gets me about the mounting recommendations is “without downloading.” Does it mean there is no separate download button, or does it mean that no local storage is used when a file is opened in the application? The two are not the same, and I would not assume the latter to be true based on the former. Before I switch, I would like to know how does the suggested application handle having to temporarily store files on the local machine, and is browsing the same large folder in it really that much faster? Being able to have everything in Finder is one thing, but that is not necessarily a factor in the issue you described.
Don’t pay for a mounting app just because its folder window appears faster. I’d compare Cyberduck and a Finder-based option on a complete task: find a file in your crowded folder, open it, make an edit, then check the saved change through Drive in your browser. That separates a nicer interface from less waiting and fewer manual steps. @vladthedebugger’s storage concern belongs in that comparison, but so does getting edits back to Drive. If browsing remains slow and only opening becomes easier, decide whether that narrower improvement is worth paying for.
Test a smaller folder first. Copy a few files over to a temporary folder and see what it’s like browsing there. If there’s a big difference, then separating the active files from the old ones may be a viable workaround for the lag, although it doesn’t solve the problem of having to download before editing.