GMail Drive Shell Extension

krmpradeep writes "GMail Drive is a Shell Namespace Extension that creates a virtual filesystem around your Google GMail account, allowing you to use GMail as a storage medium. GMail Drive creates a virtual filesystem on top of your Google GMail account and enables you to save and retrieve files stored on your GMail account directly from inside Windows Explorer. GMail Drive literally adds a new drive to your computer under the My Computer folder, where you can create new folders, copy and drag'n'drop files to."

For Linux too!

[x4A6D74]

http://richard.jones.name/google-hacks/gmail-files ystem/gmail-filesystem.html

Haven't tried it yet; I keep meaning to but school keeps getting in the way.

Re:Works as advertised

[erick99]

10MB limit applies. Oh well, still very cool.

Re:slightly OT...

[James_G]

You need an invite. Try http://www.gmailswap.com/ [gmailswap.com].

Re:Nice, but doomed

[Sneeper]

Actually Gmail *does* have a file size limit to incoming e-mails. As one person on the GMAIL Drive Forums [aimlesswords.com] states:

It appears that Google has put a file size limit on "attachments". I've installed GMail Drive and tried a couple quick uploads. One was a tar.bz2 file that weighs in at 23MB. After dragging the file over to the GMail Drive window, it worked for a while then returned an error message stating that "File is too big. GMail does currently not support files larger than 10 Mb."

The response confirms:

Great point Steve. GMail does have an attachment size limit which does limit the usefulness of these file system extensions. One solution would be to handle file splitting in the tool.

I don't have a gmail account, but anyone who does should be able to easily confirm this.

Re:slightly OT...

[peezer]

Um--you still need an invitation in order to receive a G-mail account. it is my understanding that there are plenty floating around. I'm sure there are a few /. ers who would be willing to send you an invite...

Re:It came out, has thousands of members

[lpontiac]

Probably. Google News is still labeled "beta".

Obligatory Slashdot link

[fastdecade]

GmailFS - The Google File System [slashdot.org] (August 4)

Re:Nice, but doomed

[wibs]

yup, 10MB max attachment size. the help page for attachments also mentions that the encoding is so bloated that attachments of 6MB might hit the size limit, too (alright, they didn't use the word "bloated" but it seems a little absurd to me).

Re:Nice, but doomed

[PayPaI]

No, it's not really absurd. Base-64 encoding increases file size by something like 3/2. If you do not use base-64 encoding, then your files may become corrupted in transit.

GNU violation

[Anonymous Coward]

When I installed it, I got an Open Source license agreement, but the source code is nowhere to be found.

Re:It Works

[killbill!]

GMX.net has had 1GB (file storage & e-mail) over WebDAV for free for a while now.
If you have a German or Austrian bank account, you can bump that to 5GB for 3 EUR a month or 10GB for 5 EUR a month.

Btw the features of their email service just flat out rock. I'm quite sure they are unmatched worldwide. ('been a customer since 98 now ;))

(I knew all those years learning German in high school weren't a waste of time ;p... Now then, how about you guys give us back the English version you had earlier?)

Re:So is it a filesystem?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not a filesystem. It is just like a filesystem. It send a mail includes your files as an attachment to gmail inbox when you implement a "save" operation in windows explorer.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[renoX]

That's why the yencoding format was created: to have a lower increase..

But I don't think that it will replace base64 anytime soon, unfortunately.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[Anonymous Coward]

A byte is technically 0-255, and base-64 basically utilizes 6 out of 8 bits of the byte. (0-63, only using A-Z,a-z,0-9,and two others)
Therefore anything base-64 encoded will be exactly 25% larger than it not.
I don't see why they can't store the files as a binary attachment to the e-mail, instead of storing the data inside the e-mail as text, however.

Re:Requires IE...

[julesh]

I suspect it uses the URLMON COM objects to connect back to the gmail servers. These are packaged with IE, so apps that use them state a required IE version to get the version of these objects they require.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[Alioth]

It'll last plenty of time.

It's impractical to use much of this storage unless you have an OC-45 to hand. The vast majority of people have internet connections with pathetic upstream bandwidth (128K, 256K - occasionally 512K - and very rarely more than that). It'll be fabulous for storing small files you want easy access to from anywhere, but pretty useless for storing large files or large quantities of small files simply due to the time it'll take to upload/download the files.

Re:I'm amused.

[horza]

I'm having a great time reading this thread. The same people who say things like "I would never run IE" are coming out and acting thrilled about this. What about the requirement of having IE to run this? I guess it is okay when it has something to do with Gmail. Hmmmm.

Selective zealotry at its worse.

We're thrilled that IE users are able to catch up with what Linux users have had for ages [slashdot.org].

Phillip.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[polecat_redux]

people tend to view OS bashing as flamebait around here, especially when it really isn't factual or called for.)

I wasn't bashing Linux (I use it myself). In fact, I was simply pointing out that far less people use Linux (in a home-user context) than Windows - something that is entirely factual. Linux does not possess anywhere near the market share of Windows. This is the reason usage of that app would be more widespread... plain and simply, more exposure.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[blane.bramble]

I don't see why they can't store the files as a binary attachment to the e-mail, instead of storing the data inside the e-mail as text, however.

Where exactly do you think "binary attachments" are stored - they are part of the email text. email (and specifically SMTP mail) was designed to carry text - MIME and attachments etc. are implemented as specially formatted text within the email body.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[tomstdenis]

Just FYI it's 4/3 not 3/2. That is, base-64 encoding puts out 4 bytes for every 3 bytes it reads in.

So 10MB * 3/4 => 7.5MB

Tom

Re:For Slashdot Too!

[SnapShot]

A couple of notes:

1. Gmail has been marketed as a large repository (1 GB :-) ) of space. People are already emailing huge amounts of photos back and forth. I get a vacation picture from my Mom, I don't even bother downloading it locally. If I want to look at it I just search for the email and press view photo.
   
2. Gmail offers a finite amount of space (only 1 GB :-( ). If you start uploading Linux ISO images you are going to fill up your account pretty quickly (whether or not you do it as an email attachment explicitly or through a little shell wrapper).
   
3. The agreeement between the user and Gmail is this: you get 1 GB of space and a really nice search capability. Google gets to display targeted advertisements based on the content of your account. If you start uploading Word Docs or other files, I think Google is within their rights to "mine" those attachments to send you targeted advertisements based on those attachments. Fair deal. If your account consists of 1000 files with names like big_titties1.jpg expect to get some interesting targeted ads...
   
4. Unlike the satire of the previous post (re: Slashdot mail), filling up your account does not negatively impact other users of Gmail. Nevertheless, the previous post was funny and insightful, I just think your interpretation of this project is a little more negative than it needs to be.
   

Re:It came out, has thousands of members

[generic-man]

Lawyers have said that Google News can never be run for profit, not that it must remain in "lawyer-induced beta" like that headline claims. Google News qualifies for Fair Use provisions as long as it is not a for-profit entity. It doesn't matter whether you call it "alpha," "beta," or "Suzy." Google News cannot make money; its entire purpose is to copy little samples of images and news from other companies' web sites.

Now if you want to start syndicating Google News yourself, Google has some news for you [internetnews.com].

Re:I'm amused.

[penalba]

It's not clear to me why Internet Explorer is a requirement; the download worked fine for me in Firefox. Perhaps confusion between Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer?