Where are Google Docs cached locally for offline access in Chrome

Other Questions Google drive
1

I’m trying to figure out where Chrome stores Google Docs files when they’re available offline. I know Google Drive creates those small text files with URLs in the local Google Drive folder, but I want to find the actual cached document content.

I’ve looked through the browser cache and other obvious places but haven’t found anything yet. When you enable offline access for Google Docs, the content has to be stored somewhere on the local machine, right?

Does anyone know the exact location where these offline document files are kept? I’m specifically looking for the cached content, not just the URL shortcuts that appear in the Drive folder.

2

Chrome doesn’t store offline Google Docs in one place - it spreads them across multiple storage systems. You’ve got Service Worker cache, IndexedDB, Application Cache, and Local Storage all working together. The main stuff lives in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Local Storage\leveldb, but it’s not stored as complete documents. Instead, Chrome breaks everything into fragments - document structure, formatting, and content all get stored separately. When you open a doc, Chrome reassembles all these pieces. This scattered approach means you can’t just grab a readable file from the cache. Chrome has to put it all back together through its own internal processes.

3

the cache for offline docs is in \AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Service Worker\CacheStorage. fair warning tho, it’s a bit tricky to access and it won’t look like regular files.

4

Google Docs offline content gets stored in Chrome’s IndexedDB at %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\IndexedDB. But the files aren’t readable as plain text - they’re in Google’s proprietary format. Chrome splits the cached content across multiple database files instead of storing individual documents. You’ll see folders with cryptic names tied to Google’s domain that contain the serialized document data. Even if you find these files, they’re encoded so you can’t access them directly without Chrome’s rendering engine.