Looking for a fast and pleasant way to explore my mounted Google Drive

Help and Support
1

What is the problem you are having with rclone?

Browsing directories on a mounted remote drive in Windows Explorer is all well and good... until you get to one or multiple files in a directory.
If I have a directory full of videos Windows will revert to 'Large Icons' view and insists on generating thumbnails, which causes Explorer to freeze for a very long time potentially.
And right clicking a file can lead to a very long wait also.
I don't want icons and I don't need to know the media duration, but Windows insists on getting this info for me by downloading huge chunks of data, when all I need to know is the name and size of a file and the ability to open it.

So as a result I usually only explore my files on the Google Drive webapp.
I've also found I can use command prompt to explore with relative ease and efficiency, using commands like "dir" to list a directory + assess file sizes, and using other commands to open files.
But alternatively it would be great if I could explore my mounted drive with Windows Explorer or a third party tool like Explorer++, without these massive load times.

Any ideas?

What is your rclone version (output from rclone version)

1.50.2

Which OS you are using and how many bits (eg Windows 7, 64 bit)

Windows 10 64 Bit

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

Google Drive

2

Deleted the bits that actually help us help you as the mount command is missing :frowning:

3

hi,
you should update rclone, as the latest version have a new vfs cache and better performance.

as for windows explorer, the internet is full of advice.
instead of windows explorer, which i have not use in 10+ years, i use double commander.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/18834-enable-disable-thumbnail-previews-file-explorer-windows-10-a.html
http://ask-leo.com/how_do_i_get_windows_explorer_to_display_details_by_default.html

as for slowness with folders with multiple files, you can prime the mount and a few other tweaks.
if @VBB stops by soon, i will let him explain, else i will post it.

and you need to answer the questions from up above.

4

Sorry, I tend to sleep in on days that end in "y", but I'm here now!

OP, see here for one solution to the Explorer problem: Mounting "Computers" (Backup and Sync) with rclone?

Also this: Google Drive, Plex, Windows 10

Hope that helps a bit.

5

It's really a question about windows so including the mount command was unnecessary.

I've never noticed the 'View-> Always show icons, never thumbnails' option before.
I tried it but when I click a video file for instance, it still wants to grab some info like the title and the duration, even with the preview/details pane turned off.
And even just opening a directory full of video files, if I look at the network usage on Task Manager it spikes to around 40Mbps for several seconds.
For video files particularly I don't think there's any way around this in Explorer.

The --no-modtime parameter helps somewhat as it stops Explorer freezing while rclone does its stuff, but it fundamentally doesn't get around the issue of unnecessarily downloading parts of the file when I just want to see the file name and size.

The best suggestion so far has been to use Double Commander, it allows me to explore the drive quickly and efficiently, the file's data is only downloaded when I view it or if I right click it (which is still a minor issue). I'm not sure if that's due to a shell extension I've got installed, but anyway the right click lag is not a big problem. It's a major step up from using Explorer.

Thanks for the helpful suggestions.

6

Your whole question was rooted in a question about your performance about a mount command.

and you didn't include the command you used to test with and make your conclusions.

7

strange that we have requested the mount command twice and so far you have refused twice?

as for explorer and right click menu, that can be tweaked.
imho, the best collection of free tools is nirsoft.
you can read about it here.
https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/how-to-clean-up-your-messy-windows-context-menu/

8

If you want an old style text interface then check out rclone ncdu

That is my preferred way and you can delete stuff from there too!

9 
rclone mount "GDrive:/" X: --config "rclone.conf" --allow-other --allow-non-empty --fast-list --use-mmap --buffer-size 64M --vfs-cache-mode minimal --vfs-cache-max-size 4G --vfs-read-chunk-size 64M --dir-cache-time 96h --log-level INFO --timeout 1h --log-file "rclone.log" --attr-timeout 1s -o "volname=Google Drive" --read-only --no-modtime
10

these flags do nothing on windows.

--allow-other
--allow-non-empty

i am 99% sure that --fast-list does nothing on a mount.

i could be wrong but if you mount with --read-only, there should be no need for --vfs-cache-mode minimal

11

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