Issues downloading big files from Google Drive on Windows 10

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1

I’m having trouble getting large zip files from Google Drive. My total download is about 20GB, split into 10-15 files. Some are up to 4GB each. When I try to download them one at a time, the bigger ones (over 1.5GB) don’t finish properly. They end up smaller with missing content.

I tried using a PowerShell command:

Get-GoogleDriveFile -FileId 'BIGFILE123' -AccessToken 'MY_TOKEN' -OutputPath 'C:\Downloads\bigfile.zip'

But it returned an error saying only binary files can be downloaded and that I should use export for Google Docs files.

Does anyone know how to resolve this issue? I’m really in need of a solution to download these large files completely. Thanks in advance!

2

I’ve encountered similar issues with large Google Drive downloads on Windows 10. Here’s what worked for me:

First, try using the Google Drive desktop app instead of the web interface. It’s more reliable for big files and can resume interrupted downloads.

If that doesn’t help, consider a third-party download manager like ‘Free Download Manager’ or ‘JDownloader’. These tools are designed to handle large files and can often overcome issues with browser-based downloads.

Another trick is to compress the files on Google Drive before downloading. Create a new zip archive containing your large files, which sometimes resolves download problems.

Lastly, check your antivirus settings. Some security software can interfere with large downloads. Temporarily disabling it or adding an exception for Google Drive might solve the issue.

Hope one of these methods works for you!

3

hey have u tried using rclone? its pretty awesome for big google drive downloads. i use it all the time and it handles huge files like a champ. just install it, set up ur google drive and use the copy command. its way more reliable than the browser stuff

4

Have you considered using the Google Drive API directly? I’ve had success with this approach for large files. You’ll need to set up OAuth 2.0 credentials, but once that’s done, you can use Python with the googleapiclient library to handle downloads.

Here’s a basic script structure:

from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from googleapiclient.http import MediaIoBaseDownload
import io

# Set up the Drive service
service = build('drive', 'v3', credentials=creds)

# Get the file
request = service.files().get_media(fileId='YOUR_FILE_ID')
fh = io.BytesIO()
downloader = MediaIoBaseDownload(fh, request)

# Download the file
done = False
while done is False:
    status, done = downloader.next_chunk()
    print(f'Download {int(status.progress() * 100)}%.')

# Save the file
with open('path/to/save/file.zip', 'wb') as f:
    f.write(fh.getvalue())

This method is more reliable for large files and provides progress updates. It might take some setup, but it’s worth it for consistent downloads.