Insync

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Dropbox
insync
is an alternative Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive client that is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux which allows you to sync a local folder or symlinked folders with your Google Drive or OneDrive. Whilst previous Beta versions used to be for free, the final release features a trial period after which a one-time payment per account is required.
Installation
Install
the
insync
AUR
package. It contains the synchronization daemon, a systemd service file, and a command-line utility for configuration. It can be used and integrates nicely with different desktop environments such as KDE, Gnome, or Cinnamon.
Configuration
Note
Starting Insync with the
--set-files-path
flag is no longer necessary. The aforementioned flag has been removed from recent Insync releases.
Insync can be started with the
insync start
command and stopped with the
insync quit
command. A shortcut for starting Insync should be available in the applications menu of your desktop environment.
Running as a systemd service
Enable
insync@
user
.service
or the
systemd user
service
insync.service
.
Cinnamon
When you start insync from the start menu it may not appear in the taskbar. For that, you need to add the taskbar applet by right-clicking on your panel.
Usage
The usage is self-explanatory. Copy files and folders from and to your local folder to sync it with your Google Drive.
Control via CLI
This article or section is out of date.
Reason:
CLI support has been
brought back
to Insync 3. (Discuss in
Talk:Insync
)
CLI support was dropped in the latest versions. However, users who need CLI support or want to use Insync headless can use Insync 1.5.7.
See
Headless and CLI community support
and
How to control Insync via command line (CLI)
.
Troubleshooting
Slow sync process
The default systemd service file provided in
insync
AUR
uses the
--synchronous-full
flag to make sqlite transactions safer and prevent database corruption. However, for some users this might considerably slow down the sync process. If you do not need full synchronisation, use a
drop-in file
to modify the
ExecStart
variable:
/etc/systemd/system/insync@.service.d/override.conf
[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=/usr/bin/insync start
GUI not starting and failing silently
When running
insync start
, the system tray icon does not appear and Insync does not start.
According to
[1]
, this is due to
QGtkStyle
. You will need to set the Qt4 theme to something other than GTK using
qtconfig-qt4
.
This issue is sometimes observed when using the Nouveau driver for NVIDIA graphics cards, and can be resolved by using the proprietary
NVIDIA
drivers.
Running
insync start --no-daemon
from the terminal logs output to stdout and prevents the process from being detached. This makes troubleshooting much simpler.
Missing system tray icon
If Insync is running, but it is not appearing in your system tray, try running it with the
XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=GNOME
environment variable
.
If the system tray icon still is not showing, you can try running it a
after
rather than
before
starting your window manager. For example, do not run
insync start
from
xinitrc
, but from the window manager's autostart mechanism.
System tray icon flickers between checkmark and inactive
This problem may occur due to Insync using Google's API telemetry for analytics, which could be blocked by a network installed
Pi-hole
. To fix, enter Insync's app settings and disable "Anonymously send usage data to Insync".