When Google Drive Works in Nemo but Not in GNOME Commander

Some days you sit down to work, open your file manager, and everything just behaves. Other days you discover that half the things you rely on simply refuse to show up—and today was one of those days.

The issue began when Google Drive mounted just fine in Nemo, yet stubbornly refused to appear in GNOME Commander. The drive was technically “there,” but completely invisible. And, to make it more confusing, GNOME Commander didn’t just fail—it crashed outright whenever the mount was accessed. Nothing like a sudden window closing itself to remind you that software is held together with hope and duct tape.

The first culprit seemed to be the built-in GNOME Online Accounts (GOA) mount under gvfs. It works for many file managers, but GNOME Commander doesn’t speak GVFS properly, so it sees the mount path but can’t actually access it. Result: a sad empty panel, or a full program crash.

So the next step was clear: skip GVFS and mount Google Drive manually using rclone, which plays much more nicely with traditional file systems.

The process was fairly straightforward:

rclone config

Then:

  • Create a new remote (named it mydrive)
  • Choose Google Drive as the backend
  • Select the full-access scope
  • Approve the OAuth login in the browser
  • Save the config

After that, listing files worked:

rclone ls mydrive:

So far so good.

Next step: actually mounting the drive as a folder.

mkdir -p ~/GoogleDrive
rclone mount mydrive: ~/GoogleDrive --vfs-cache-mode writes &

Instant success. Files were visible, editable, and GNOME Commander didn’t explode. A small victory.

Once the Google Drive remote was finally working and I could mount it manually with:

rclone mount mydrive: /home/gabor/GoogleDrive --vfs-cache-mode writes

…the next logical step was making this happen automatically every time the computer starts, so I don’t have to type the command again like some medieval scribe.

There are several ways to do this on Linux, but I went with two simple GUI-based options anyone can follow:

KAlarm isn’t just for reminders. It can also run commands at login, silently and in the background.

  1. Open KAlarm.
  2. Click New Alarm → Command.
  3. In the command field, paste: rclone mount mydrive: /home/gabor/GoogleDrive --vfs-cache-mode writes
  4. Under Recurrence, select At Login.
  5. Disable any popup message so it runs quietly.
  6. Save.

Now, every time the system boots, KAlarm executes the mount command automatically.
It feels like having a tiny servant who wakes up before I do and sets the desk in order.

If you’re not on Kalarm, most desktop environments have a “Startup Applications” tool.

  1. Press Super key, type “Startup” or “Session” and open Startup Applications.
  2. Click Add.
  3. Name it something like: Mount Google Drive.
  4. In the command box, enter: rclone mount mydrive: /home/gabor/GoogleDrive --vfs-cache-mode writes
  5. Save and close.

That’s it — the system now runs the command automatically after login.

A small caveat

For both methods, the mount only works if:

  • The folder /home/gabor/GoogleDrive already exists
  • rclone is installed and configured
  • The network is available at login (most systems handle this fine)

If the drive doesn’t appear instantly, it just means the network came up after the command ran. In that case, repeating the command by hand still works, or you can delay the script by a few seconds in advanced settings.

    And now? Google Drive loads automatically, GNOME Commander stays open, and the world is briefly in order again.

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