Google Drive: How to copy shared folder content to another folder?

Question

I have access to a folder shared with me (let's say SharedWithMe folder) and I want to backup this folder as the sharing will be end in the future. So, is it possible to sync / copy the SharedWithMe folder content with / to another folder (let's say MyBackup) in y Google Drive?

Answer 1

You can not copy shared folders directly, as of yet. For this purpose you'll need to use Google Colaboratory:

1. Create a new Notebook on Colab
2. First You'll need to mount your drive as so:

from google.colab import drive
drive.mount('/gdrive')

This asks for a authorisation code.
3. Now, on a separate tab, open your Google Drive and go to Shared with Me. Right click and click 'Add Shortcut to Drive'. This shortcut is temporary and can be deleted later.
4. Type %cd /gdrive/MyDrive/<path-to-the-shortcut> to go to that location and then type pwd to get the path.
5. Execute !cp -r 'above-path/.' '/gdrive/My Drive/<destinantion>'

OR you can avoid all that and simply execute this:

#@title Deeply copy shared folders in Google Drive
from google.colab import drive
import os

print('Mounting Google Drive...')
drive.mount('/gdrive')

src_path = '/gdrive/MyDrive/DE A1' #@param {type: 'string'}
assert os.path.exists(src_path), f"Source '{src_path}' doesn't exist!"

target_path = '/gdrive/MyDrive/Language/German' #@param {type: 'string'}
os.makedirs(target_path, exist_ok=True)
assert os.path.exists(target_path), f"Target '{target_path}' doesn't exist!"

target_path = os.path.join(target_path, os.path.basename(src_path))
print(f'Copying from "{src_path}" to "{target_path}"...')
os.makedirs(target_path, exist_ok=True)
!cp -rf "$src_path"/* "$target_path"  # also work when source is a shortcut

Answer 2

The said method from @Saaransh_Garg seems not working now on some sub-folders that is also shared.

However it is still possible to copy a shared file if the path is provided, so instead of relying on the native system call to recursively copy files, following script, which is also supposed to run in colab notebook, list all the files and folders and copy using shutil

from google.colab import drive
import os
import shutil

print('Mounting Google Drive...')
drive.mount('/gdrive')

# List all dirs and sub-dirs
# OS method won't work on links 
def walk_and_copy(root_path, parent_path, target_path, max_depth=3):
    dirs = 0
    copied = 0
    failed = 0
    if max_depth == 0: return (0,0,0)

    print(f"Listing: {root_path}")
    for entry in os.scandir(parent_path):
        subpath = entry.path[len(root_path)+1:]
        target_p = os.path.join(target_path, subpath)

        # DFS
        if entry.is_dir():
           dirs += 1
           os.makedirs(target_p, exist_ok=True)
           d,c,f = walk_and_copy(root_path, entry.path, target_path, max_depth-1)
           dirs += d
           copied += c
           failed += f
        else:
           print(f"copying to {target_p}")
           try:
               shutil.copyfile(entry.path, target_p)
               copied += 1
           except Exception as e:
               print(f"Cannot copy {target_p}, {type(e)}")
               failed += 1
               return (dirs, copied, failed)

src_path = "/gdrive/MyDrive/src_path" #@param {type: 'string'}
assert os.path.exists(src_path), f"Source '{src_path}' doesn't exist!"

target_path = '/gdrive/MyDrive/target_path' #@param {type: 'string'}
os.makedirs(target_path, exist_ok=True) 
assert os.path.exists(target_path), f"Target '{target_path}' doesn't exist!"

target_path = os.path.join(target_path, os.path.basename(src_path))
d, c, f = walk_and_copy(src_path, src_path, target_path, -1)
print(f"dirs listed: {d}, copied files: {c}, failed: {f}")