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Has anyone discovered where/how offline Google Documents are stored when using Google Drive in Chrome? They must be stored locally but where?

Have tried the browser cache etc but can't see it unless I'm missing something very obvious!

To clarify, the file that is stored within 'My Documents/Google Drive' is a text file with a URL, what I am looking for is where the file that the URL points to is held when in offline mode.

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Shouldn't that be in the "Google Drive" folder in "My Documents"? –  simaglei Oct 9 '12 at 9:47
The offline file that Google stores in 'My Documents/Google Drive' is just a .txt file with a URL. Note this is for Google Documents, I'm sure .doc formats probably are stored within this particular folder. –  pjpeers Oct 9 '12 at 11:09
Upload to GoogleDrive something big, go offline and see which folder size increased. –  spyder Nov 30 '12 at 9:06
I guess we're all too lazy to actually try this. :-) I know I am - thus the bounty. Actually, I was hoping somebody would already know the answer. –  DaveGauer Dec 4 '12 at 23:45
@DaveGauer laziness, impatience, and hubris? :) –  spyder Dec 5 '12 at 3:14
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7 Answers

up vote 7 down vote accepted

It turns out the offline documents are stored in the HTML5 FileSystem.

The Chrome FileSystem storage is located here on my Windows 7 machine:


I added a number of large images to a document with the Chrome "Offline Docs" enabled and was able to see the FileSystem storage directory grow appropriately.

I then used the HTML5 FileSystem Explorer extension for Chrome to view the file structure of an offline document and was able to confirm that the images were, indeed being retrieved from the HTML5 FileSystem when Chrome was offline. See screenshot:

screenshot of an offline google drive document and its storage of a document in filesystem

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Wish I could give myself a bounty. –  DaveGauer Dec 5 '12 at 3:57
I suspected that the actual files would be on the file system, that's why I wrote that IndexedDB contains data about files. BTW, functionality in that extension should be built into Web Inspector. –  MeTTeO Dec 5 '12 at 8:07
@MeTTeO Yeah, I did catch the distinction in what you wrote. And I think you're right about that too - it does appear to use the IndexedDB for various purposes while using the application. As for the built-in resource viewer in Chrome, I agree with you - it sort of does the same thing (as the HTML5 FileSystem Explorer Extension), but it was far less readable and I couldn't figure out an easy way to actually open the "files" in the browser like I could with the extension. –  DaveGauer Dec 5 '12 at 16:55
Just wanted to say thanks Dave, and apologies for not showing my appreciation sooner! –  pjpeers Jan 28 '13 at 16:17
@pjpeers Cool, thanks! –  DaveGauer Feb 8 '13 at 22:20
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Google Drive uses Chrome's IndexedDB for storing data about files. To see the contents, open developer console (Ctrl + Shift + I) and choose Resources tab.

This answer tells you about actual location of IndexedDB in the file system on Windows: http://stackoverflow.com/a/9389289/973070

On Linux it's: ~/.config/google-chrome/Default/IndexedDB

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This looks like the right answer. On my Windows 7 machine, Chrome's IndexedDB data for the Docs/Drive site/app was located here: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\IndexedDB\https_.docs.google.com_0.indexeddb.leveldb. I watched it grow in size as I edited a new document on Docs/Drive. I can't confirm that it actually contains all of my offline documents, but that appears likely given its current size of 32Mb (the other IndexedDB directories are all much, much smaller.) –  DaveGauer Dec 5 '12 at 0:03
Nope, turns out that was wrong. The IndexedDB was definitely being written to while I was in Docs, but it wasn't actually being used as the persistent storage for offline mode. –  DaveGauer Dec 5 '12 at 3:56
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Further, it may interest you, the location where Google Drive stores offline docs in Android's file system.


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Thanks for the tip! A folder inside it is named "files\pinned_docs_files_do_not_edit" and the folders within are long random strings with actual files inside them. –  Naidu Ypvs Aug 1 '13 at 10:05
I can't play any of files there? Are they encrypted. None of my Android media players can play the songs. –  Saeed Neamati Jan 19 at 7:43
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Offline access is available only when you’re using Chrome. See Setup Offline Access and Google Docs Offline. It seems like offline documents are encoded by Chrome and stored at some secret places, in order to force you to use Chrome.

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Quite right, so what's the secret place? –  DaveGauer Dec 4 '12 at 23:46
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Mine were all stored in

C:\users\%username%\Google Drive\

Have you downloaded Google Drive?

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With the exception of file types not native to Google Docs, the Google Drive directory only contains a series of URLs pointing at the actual documents being stored online. See pjpeer's comment on simaglei's answer. –  DaveGauer Dec 4 '12 at 23:44
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I turned off my laptop's wifi and click on my photos in google drive folder and all of them, many, are there, on my hard disk.

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I have found the files in the "docs_files_do_not_edit directory but I get a "file type not supported" when trying to open it, whereas opening it in google drive is OK. Must be some added complexity.

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Is this intended as an answer for this (old) question, or is it a new question? It doesn't give enough information to be an answer (and doesn't seem to add anything to the expected answer). –  kdgregory Oct 27 '13 at 17:27
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