Unable to Publish Google Drive Client as Docs Advise

Help and Support
1

What is the problem you are having with rclone?

The docs say to use my own Google Drive Client ID, but I am unable to publish my app:

Valid app name, support email, homepage url, and privacy policy url are required for switching the app to external production mode. You must enter the missing information to proceed. Please visit the Branding page to finish configuring your app.

This is a problem because without this, I have read my access token expires every 7 hours, refresh is not allowed.

This means my headless backup orchestrater server cant do backups on a cron schedule nightly.

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

rclone v1.75.0

  • os/version: ubuntu 26.04 (64 bit)
  • os/kernel: 7.0.0-30-generic (x86_64)
  • os/type: linux
  • os/arch: amd64
  • go/version: go1.26.5
  • 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)

sync command for Google Drive to Backblaze B2

Paste command here

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

I dont think I need this for this issue since thisis not a config issuer per say

Paste config here

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

This is not really a command issues, its an issue with Google Drive Client ID

Paste  log here
2

welcome to the forum,

have you seen this?
Can’t configure Google Drive client ID

3

Looks like most people are SOL. They make you use a domain you own, they make you upload a video of your app and stuff. I have a domain ill try going through it but this is hilariously shitty to do to people that want to do backups of their personal data.

4

yeah googles oauth branding wall is rough for personal backup setups. in my experience you dont actually need production/publish for rclone cron if you keep the consent screen on External + Testing and add your own google account as a test user. tokens last longer that way and refresh works for the test users without the full verification circus.

production publish is the path if you want unrelated accounts, but for one headless box backing up your own drive the testing mode + test user has been enough for me. the docs kinda undersell how annoying the publish checklist got.

5

Unfortunately the docs for Google oauth stuff are a moving target.

We appreciate pull requests fixing the docs the most :slight_smile: but if you have a suggestion for the docs I can put them in.

Thanks

6

That's the fundemental issue as folks complain it's wrong, but no one wants to update it. It's an odd thing to read through :slight_smile:

My best investment was moving to local storage as it's paid for itself over the last few years.