Google drive account locked

Help and Support
1

What is the problem you are having with rclone?

I suggested to a friend to use rclone to download a lot of files they needed to get from their client’s Google Drive. The problem is that the folder was very large (60 GB). The sync ran well for the first minutes. Then, I got a lot of 401 errors. And now, the Google account is locked, flagged as “used to trespass Google rules or created by/for a bot”.

Run the command 'rclone version' and share the full output of the command.

.\rclone-v1.74.1-windows-amd64\rclone.exe --version
rclone v1.74.1

os/version: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro 25H2 25H2 (64 bit)
os/kernel: 10.0.26200.8246 (x86_64)
os/type: windows
os/arch: amd64
go/version: go1.26.3
go/linking: static
go/tags: cmount

Which cloud storage system are you using? (eg Google Drive)

Google Drive

The command you were trying to run (eg rclone copy /tmp remote:tmp)

.\rclone.exe copy drive-ClientNameRedacted: F:\LM --drive-root-folder-id <folderid-redacted> --progress

Please run 'rclone config redacted' and share the full output. If you get command not found, please make sure to update rclone.

.\rclone-v1.74.1-windows-amd64\rclone.exe config redacted
[drive-ClientNameRedacted]
type = drive
scope = drive
token = XXX
team_drive =
### Double check the config for sensitive info before posting publicly

A log from the command that you were trying to run with the -vv flag

Sorry, I don’t have the full log, the windows was accidentally closed.

I supposed that the volume was too large for Google. I am aware that there no real question here, but I am posting here in case there is something that should have been done to prevent this account locking.

Thank you all for reading this.

2

welcome to the forum,

that is a very small amount of data, i doubt that is the issue.
about the files, illegal, pirated content or what?

google offers the free gdrive client for windows, have you tried that?

run the command again, post the full debug log with the exact error.

as per rclone docs, should create and use a client id+secret.

3

that is a very small amount of data, i doubt that is the issue.
about the files, illegal, pirated content or what?

OK, that's great that it's considered a very small amount of data.

The files are completely legal, they are mostly composed of technical
pdf/xls/jpg files documenting the work of a company (real estate). The client
of my friend is the producer of those documents, or its vendors.

google offers the free gdrive client for windows, have you tried that?

No, not yet, but it seems beforehand that it would not be of great help to
download a full folder and preserve it's folder structure (which was the key
feature). It looked like it would try to split and zip the 60GB of files into
several archives, as the web interface did (and failed to do properly).

run the command again, post the full debug log with the exact error.

I did that, but as I expected, now that the account is locked, we get another
error.

Here is the "current" log:

2026/05/13 18:37:59 ERROR : Google drive root '': error reading source root
directory: couldn't list directory: Get
"https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v3/files?alt=json&fields=files%28id%2Cname%2Cs
ize%2Cmd5Checksum%2Csha1Checksum%2Csha256Checksum%2Ctrashed%2CexplicitlyTrashed%
2CmodifiedTime%2CcreatedTime%2CmimeType%2Cparents%2CwebViewLink%2CshortcutDetail
s%2CexportLinks%2CresourceKey%29%2CnextPageToken%2CincompleteSearch&includeItems
FromAllDrives=true&pageSize=1000&prettyPrint=false&q=trashed%3Dfalse+and+%28%27<
redacted-folder-id>%27+in+parents%29&supportsAllDrives=true":
couldn't fetch token: invalid_grant: maybe token expired? - try refreshing with
"rclone config reconnect clientNameRedacted{PKADY}:"
2026/05/13 18:37:59 ERROR : Attempt 1/3 failed with 1 errors and: couldn't list
directory: Get
"https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v3/files?alt=json&fields=files%28id%2Cname%2Cs
ize%2Cmd5Checksum%2Csha1Checksum%2Csha256Checksum%2Ctrashed%2CexplicitlyTrashed%
2CmodifiedTime%2CcreatedTime%2CmimeType%2Cparents%2CwebViewLink%2CshortcutDetail
s%2CexportLinks%2CresourceKey%29%2CnextPageToken%2CincompleteSearch&includeItems
FromAllDrives=true&pageSize=1000&prettyPrint=false&q=trashed%3Dfalse+and+%28%27<
redacted-folder-id>%27+in+parents%29&supportsAllDrives=true":
couldn't fetch token: invalid_grant: maybe token expired? - try refreshing with
"rclone config reconnect clientNameRedacted{PKADY}:"

as per rclone docs, should create and use a client id+secret.

I should have (re)read the docs before. Unfortunately, I was advised by… the Google
AI Gemini not to set those parameters. Maybe they're the reason that made the
download fail.

Apparently, now the account needs to undergo an "appeal procedure", with Google
checking what was done. So, I don't think we will be able to create this client
id + secret (at least with this account). I think my friend will have to discuss
with the client, so that files are transferred with another way (if they need to
work on the files before the account is back).

thanks again for your help!

4

go ahead and try that