I have several Google Drive accounts I need to sync to my computer so I naturally found odrive while searching for solutions. I commonly loose internet connect due to travel and living part time in a developing country. I want to be able to view and preferable save Google Docs and Google Spreadsheets while offline. I thought odrive would allow me to do this. But it doesn’t seem to work. I have the files always synced and downloaded on my computer with odrive. I see the files with the .gdocx file extension. I also have the Google Docs Offline Chrome extension installed. However when I try to open the Google Doc offline I get an error from odrive stating “Can’t open ….gdocx. Please check your network connection or manage your proxy settings.” Is it possible to sync multiple G Drives with odrive and open the Google Docs offline?

It’s a limitation of how Google Docs stores files and how Google Docs offline works. You’re thinking that gdocx files work like docx files and Google Docs Offline works like Word. In that you could double click a gdocx or gsheetx file and have it open in Google Docs offline. None of it works like that. Google Docs offline isn’t like a normal application. It won’t open files off a double click. You need to use Google Docs Offline to manage and open the files. There is nothing oDrive can do to resolve this as it’s a limitation with Google Docs. oDrive isn’t intended to manage Google Docs files like other files. Now, if you use it to sync normal docx files and open with with Word or Libre Office you’ll have what you want.

Sync 2 Google Drives and Access Google Docs Offline

I Have a Question

Tony November 2, 2017, 3:40pm 3

Great explanation @cyotee.

@Ashton, cyotee pretty much covered it above, but you can also take a look at this post, which goes over this exact use case: