Name: plexdrive

Last reviewed by: Clipper, April 2026

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Plexdrive

⚠️ Plexdrive has been abandoned. The project's last release was in 2020 and it is no longer maintained. The recommended alternative is rclone, which provides the same Google Drive mounting functionality with active development and better stability.

The guide below is kept for reference only.

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Introduction

This tutorial helps you connect your Google Drive to your Bytesized Plex server using Plexdrive. Using Plexdrive you can stream content directly from your Google Drive without downloading it to the server first.

Plexdrive setup and running requires a certain level of Linux knowledge.

Please note:

• Plexdrive only works with Google Drive.
• Plexdrive is read-only. Use rclone for uploading files.
• Never mount on your home folder (including ~, $HOME, or an absolute path to your home folder). This will break your entire box.
• Connecting your apps directly to the mount can make them highly unstable. If your apps stop responding you will have to troubleshoot yourself.

Getting your API credentials for Google Drive

Open your browser and visit https://console.developers.google.com.

On the Dashboard, choose Google Drive API.

Click Enable.

Click Create credentials and select OAuth client ID.

You will be prompted to Configure consent screen first — click that, type a description (e.g. Plex) and hit Save.

Select Other under Application type, give your API an appropriate name (e.g. Plex), then click Create.

You will be given your Client ID and Client Secret — keep this window open as you'll need them shortly.

Installing Plexdrive

Connect to your box via SSH — see the KiTTY guide if you're on Windows.

Make sure the apps directory exists:

mkdir ~/apps

Install Plexdrive (v5.2.1, the last stable release):

cd ~/apps && wget https://github.com/plexdrive/plexdrive/releases/download/5.2.1/plexdrive-linux-amd64 -O plexdrive

Make it executable:

chmod 755 ~/apps/plexdrive

Connecting your Google Drive

Create the mount directory:

mkdir -p ~/mnt/plexdrive

Start a screen session to keep the process running after you disconnect:

screen -S plexdrive

Run Plexdrive for the first time to authenticate:

~/apps/plexdrive mount -o allow_other --config ~/.plexdrive --cache-file ~/.plexdrive/cache.bolt ~/mnt/plexdrive

You will be prompted to enter your Client ID, Client Secret, and then visit a URL to authorise access with your Google account. Paste the verification code back in the terminal.

Detach from the screen session with Ctrl+A D. Plexdrive will continue running in the background and begin building its cache — this may take some time on a large Drive.

Auto-start on boot

To have Plexdrive start automatically when your box restarts, create a startup script:

nano ~/.startup/plexdrive

Paste:

#!/bin/bash
screen -dmS plexdrive ~/apps/plexdrive mount -o allow_other --config ~/.plexdrive --cache-file ~/.plexdrive/cache.bolt ~/mnt/plexdrive

Save and make it executable:

chmod +x ~/.startup/plexdrive