Mounting Google Shared Drives on Ubuntu Server with rclone

Overview

Previous method only covered “My Drive” which does not show me Google Shared Drives (formerly Team Drives). This is a follow-up to Mounting Google Drive on Ubuntu Server with rclone.

Prerequisites

• A working rclone setup with Google Drive already configured (see the previous post)
• The OAuth token from the existing gdrive remote in ~/.config/rclone/rclone.conf

1. Find Shared Drive IDs

To list all Shared Drives available to your account, use the Google Drive API:

python3 -c "
import json, urllib.request

with open('$HOME/.config/rclone/rclone.conf') as f:
    for line in f:
        if line.startswith('token'):
            token = json.loads(line.split('=', 1)[1].strip())
            break

req = urllib.request.Request(
    'https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v3/drives?pageSize=100',
    headers={'Authorization': f'Bearer {token[\"access_token\"]}'}
)
resp = urllib.request.urlopen(req)
for d in json.loads(resp.read()).get('drives', []):
    print(f'  ID: {d[\"id\"]}  Name: {d[\"name\"]}')
"

If the access token has expired, run rclone lsd gdrive: first to refresh it, then try again.

2. Add Shared Drive Remotes to rclone Config

Edit ~/.config/rclone/rclone.conf and add a new section for each Shared Drive. The key difference from a personal drive config is the team_drive field:

[gdrive-shared-example]
type = drive
scope = drive
token = <SAME_TOKEN_AS_YOUR_GDRIVE_REMOTE>
team_drive = <SHARED_DRIVE_ID>

For example, to add two Shared Drives:

[gdrive-shared-a]
type = drive
scope = drive
token = {"access_token":"...","token_type":"Bearer","refresh_token":"...","expiry":"..."}
team_drive = <SHARED_DRIVE_ID_A>

[gdrive-shared-b]
type = drive
scope = drive
token = {"access_token":"...","token_type":"Bearer","refresh_token":"...","expiry":"..."}
team_drive = <SHARED_DRIVE_ID_B>

Use the same token value from your existing [gdrive] remote. Each Shared Drive only needs a unique team_drive ID.

Verify the Connection

rclone lsd gdrive-shared-a: --max-depth 1
rclone lsd gdrive-shared-b: --max-depth 1

3. Create Mount Points

mkdir -p ~/google-drive-shared/shared-a
mkdir -p ~/google-drive-shared/shared-b

Test with a manual mount:

rclone mount gdrive-shared-a: ~/google-drive-shared/shared-a --vfs-cache-mode writes --daemon
ls ~/google-drive-shared/shared-a

4. Auto-Mount with systemd

Create a systemd user service for each Shared Drive.

Create Service Files

~/.config/systemd/user/rclone-gdrive-shared-a.service:

[Unit]
Description=Mount Google Shared Drive (shared-a) with rclone
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/bin/rclone mount gdrive-shared-a: %h/google-drive-shared/shared-a --vfs-cache-mode writes
ExecStop=/bin/fusermount -u %h/google-drive-shared/shared-a
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

~/.config/systemd/user/rclone-gdrive-shared-b.service:

[Unit]
Description=Mount Google Shared Drive (shared-b) with rclone
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/bin/rclone mount gdrive-shared-b: %h/google-drive-shared/shared-b --vfs-cache-mode writes
ExecStop=/bin/fusermount -u %h/google-drive-shared/shared-b
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

Enable and Start

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now rclone-gdrive-shared-a.service
systemctl --user enable --now rclone-gdrive-shared-b.service

Verify

systemctl --user status rclone-gdrive-shared-a
systemctl --user status rclone-gdrive-shared-b
ls ~/google-drive-shared/shared-a
ls ~/google-drive-shared/shared-b

Final Mount Structure

Drive	Mount Path	Service
My Drive	~/google-drive/	rclone-gdrive
Shared Drive A	~/google-drive-shared/shared-a/	rclone-gdrive-shared-a
Shared Drive B	~/google-drive-shared/shared-b/	rclone-gdrive-shared-b

Useful Commands

Action	Command
Check all statuses	systemctl --user status rclone-gdrive*
Stop a mount	systemctl --user stop rclone-gdrive-shared-a
View logs	journalctl --user -u rclone-gdrive-shared-a
List available Shared Drives	See the Python script in Step 1