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I am using version 51 of Google Drive for Desktop. It has four accounts added to it. Each account is mounted to MacOS (Mojave) as a volume. Each volume has an irritatingly long name like: [email protected] - Google Drive. I have four of these in my Finder's Sidebar, I want to rename these, but cannot. I also these four accounts with irritatingly long name mounted on the Desktop. I would like to rename these too, but cannot.

I have tried to rename the mounted volumes:

  • through the Finder's Get Info pane, but the name field is grayed out.
  • via the command line with mv, this works, but then Google Drive Desktop cannot find the folder.

When I could not rename the Google Drive for Desktop mounted volumes, I tried to hide them ... this did not work either.

I have tried to hide the mounted volumes by:

  • dragging them from the Finder's Sidebar; this only works for one account every time and the other three it never works.
  • using diskutil rename does not work ... the mounted volumes are invisible to diskutil and the GUI version 'Disk Utility'.
  • SetFile -a V /GoogleDrive gives an error: "ERROR: Unexpected Error. (-5000) on file: /Volumes/GoogleDrive".
  • chflags hidden /Volumes/GoogleDrive gives an error: "chflags: GoogleDrive: Input/output error".
  • xattr -d com.apple.FinderInfo /Volumes/GoogleDrive gives an error: "xattr: GoogleDrive: No such xattr: com.apple.FinderInfo".

The mounted volumes do show in /Volumes when using ls and the permissions are drwx------ and ownership is mrcook staff. This is where things get dodgy.

Here is the output of ls -pal in /Volumes: the command line output of ls -pal in /Volumes

I may be the owner of the mounted volumes, but actually I am not. I cannot change the permissions or the ownership of any of the Google Drive for Desktop volumes. chmod, chown, and chgrp do nothing. Using sudo does nothing. Using root (sudo su) does nothing too. Root should always work, the user should always be able to 100% control over their computer ... it feels like Google has made choices for me about how things look and behave on my computer and has absconded with control my computer.

I am looking for a solution to circumvent whatever Google has done that will let me change the volume names or hide the volumes and still let me sync files to my Google Drive folders.

I am aware of this related question:

Google drive for desktop - how can I remove the virtual drives?

Regarding the type of accounts linked to Drive for Desktop: one is a "free" account and other three are Google Workspaces accounts, all three with different entities (two Google Workspaces are the lowest business tier, the third is top tier education).

Google Drive for Desktop currently limits the number of accounts linked to a maximum of 4 simultaneous accounts.

Update 2021.10.1

As expected due to the announcement in this Google Workspaces post, Backup and Sync has stopped functioning on my work computer: notifications from Backup and Sync; the first with a 30 days warning

The only option is download Drive for Desktop to regain similar functions, e.g. a folder that has your Drive files but is accessible without going to a browser and using drive.google.com.

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  • Your successful test with mv suggests that you can't do it just OS level and have it working. You need to change the references on the Google side as well.
    – Peregrino69
    Commented Sep 25, 2021 at 16:32
  • This might work: https://digitizor.com/rename-google-drive-folder-apple-mac-os/
    – Peregrino69
    Commented Sep 25, 2021 at 16:34
  • @Peregrino69 That link shows the way things worked with Backup and Sync and File Stream ... the Drive files were a special folder in the user's directory which could be manipulated—this is the desired behavior that now seems impossible. Both of those software options are gone (or soon to be EOL) and replaced with Drive for Desktop. Now instead of folders we get some kind of virtual disks.
    – mr.cook
    Commented Sep 25, 2021 at 17:05
  • Sorry, I didn't read through it. I googled how to rename Google Drive folders on MacOS, that popped up and the title matches. I've got it installed, mine isn't any kind of virtual drive, it's just a sync folder in my home directory. Might be different or Business version - if you're using that you should mention it in the question for clarity.
    – Peregrino69
    Commented Sep 25, 2021 at 17:16
  • That is because you are using an old version, probably Backup and Sync, which you won't be able to sign into after October 1st (per this:workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2021/07/…). Soon you will lose that synced folder in your Home directory (it will be replaced with an alias which you can rename) and be stuck in this same nonsense along with everyone else who was using Backup and Sync or Drive File Stream.
    – mr.cook
    Commented Sep 28, 2021 at 7:09

1 Answer 1

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I don't think I'm nearly as sophisticated as the poster so my solution may not stick. I just opened my home folder with Drive for Desktop running and saw my various drives there. I renamed them. Quit Google Drive. And when it reopened it automatically recreated those same shortcut folders using the original annoying names with email addresses. But the other shortcut folders I renamed remain in the folder and still work. So I added those to the finder sidebar and removed the ones Google Drive had added. So this seems to have worked? Hope this helps.

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