Fairly frequently, google drive on OSX will pop up with a message that tells me some files were unsyncable, with the offer to retry. I'm worried that these files will just go missing, or only be stored locally. Does google drive fix the syncing of these files later or if I do nothing will they just not ever be synced?

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Unfortunately, the google support answer is incomplete.

I've delayed solving G-Drive synch problems for many months, as I've lacked time and incentive. But I had half an hour to kill while still alert today.

I solved 2 long-standing synch problems by brute-force synching the files by hand:

  1. I downloaded a 16 MB video into the right folder, and Gdrive's stopped complaining.
  2. And I deleted two Mac .DS_Store files from Gdrive cloud and it stopped complaining that they were missing on my computer.

Don't ask me why this Gdrive couldn't solve these issues itself. Perhaps it wanted some attention!


  • Good comments - looks likes it's just badly designed and handles errors poorly. – Tom Sep 2 '17 at 8:39
  1. Click the Google Drive icon in your computer’s toolbar.
  2. Select "View # unsyncable files."
  3. Click Retry all.
  4. If step 3 doesn't work, quit Google Drive and open it again from your Applications folder.

Still have files that won't sync? Consult this list of error messages related to syncing problems and some possible solutions: https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2565956#wont_sync

Note: copied from https://bod.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/206741586-Common-errors-in-Google-Drive

  • Welcome to Super User! Please read How to reference material written by others. You should block quote text that has been written by some else. See Markdown help. I've fixed it for you this time, but please pay attention to this in future. – DavidPostill Dec 14 '16 at 15:44
  • Not clear based on this information what actually happens to the unsyncable files. Do they just get lost or does Google Drive keep hold of them? – Tom Aug 14 '17 at 16:39

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