Google drive bisync error 403 propertyLengthLimitExceeded

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1

What is the problem you are having with rclone?

I have followed the guide to set up rclone with google drive on a linux lubuntu 24.04 laptop, and attempted to run a first bisync with –resync as mentioned in the bisync page. The command seems to have copied some files correctly, but not all of them. The number of files and size is very limited, just a few hundred files and about 500Mb. The files that are not copied give a type of 403 error that I could not find with the usual Google search:


2025/09/04 19:45:07 ERROR : filename.pdf: Failed to copy: googleapi: \
Error 403: Properties and app properties are limited to 124 bytes in UTF-8 encoding, \
counting both the key and the value., propertyLengthLimitExceeded

Any idea how to fix this?

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

rclone v1.71.0
- os/version: ubuntu 24.04 (64 bit)
- os/kernel: 6.8.0-79-generic (x86_64)
- os/type: linux
- os/arch: amd64
- go/version: go1.25.0
- go/linking: static
- go/tags: none

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 bisync /localfolder/rclone/bisync drive:rclone/bisync --create-empty-src-dirs \
--compare size,modtime,checksum --slow-hash-sync-only \
--resilient -MvP --drive-skip-gdocs --fix-case --resync

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

[drive]
type = drive
client_id = XXX
client_secret = XXX
scope = drive
token = XXX
team_drive =

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

2025/09/04 19:45:07 ERROR : filename.pdf: Failed to copy: googleapi: Error 403: Properties and app properties are limited to 124 bytes in UTF-8 encoding, counting both the key and the value., propertyLengthLimitExceeded
2025/09/04 19:45:07 DEBUG : writing result: 
{
	"Src": "/localfolder/rclone/bisync/",
	"Dst": "",
	"Name": "filename.pdf",
	"AltName": "",
	"Size": 7424362,
	"Modtime": "2014-01-30T23:46:08Z",
	"Hash": "",
	"Flags": "-",
	"Sigil": 33,
	"Err": {},
	"Winner": {
		"Obj": {},
		"Side": "src",
		"Err": null
	},
	"IsWinner": true,
	"IsSrc": true,
	"IsDst": false,
	"Origin": "sync"
}
2025/09/04 19:45:07 DEBUG : writing result: 
{
	"Src": "/localfolder/rclone/bisync/",
	"Dst": "",
	"Name": "filename.pdf",
	"AltName": "",
	"Size": 7424362,
	"Modtime": "2014-01-30T23:46:08Z",
	"Hash": "",
	"Flags": "-",
	"Sigil": 33,
	"Err": {},
	"Winner": {
		"Obj": {},
		"Side": "src",
		"Err": null
	},
	"IsWinner": false,
	"IsSrc": false,
	"IsDst": true,
	"Origin": "sync"
}
2

I’m pretty sure the issue is that Google Drive imposes a size limit on the length of metadata, and your file’s metadata has exceeded it. Unfortunately, it’s Google’s restriction and there’s not much rclone can do about it. :frowning:

I think if you remove the -M flag it should work (but of course, your metadata will not get copied to drive.) Alternatively, you could look into the --metadata-mapper for a more robust way to intercept and truncate the metadata.

3

Thanks so much for the quick reply. Removing -M allowed me to bisync the remaining files. I'm not particularly interested in preserving the metadata, though it would have been nice if it did out of the box.

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