Where did Google Drive Stored my Offline Files?

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by

Jeff
in

“Where did Google Drive Stored my Offline Files?” This is a problem that I encountered recently. And eventually found where Google Drive is storing my downloaded or “Offline” files in my Android smartphone. Before I show you where, let me tell you first what happened. Well, if you don’t want to read my story, you can skip the middle part of this article and scroll down.

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I recently uploaded an Audio file to my Google Drive through a desktop computer here in the office, since I do not have a card reader or a USB cable to transfer the files from the computer to my Android smartphone. So I made use of Google Drive. I uploaded the file to Google Drive. And I downloaded the Google Drive App on my phone. I accessed the file through the Google Drive App on my smartphone and there it was. Problem 1 solved!

Now the next problem is I want that file to be available locally or offline so that I could listen to the audio file anywhere I am. So I downloaded the file to my android smartphone by making it an “Offline file”. Second problem solved!

Now, where in the world did Google drive stored the Offline files? Because I wanted to transfer it on the MP3 folder on my sdCard. I searched every directory in my smartphone and finally I found it.

So where did Google Drive save or stored the Offile files? It’s here:
sdcard/Android/data/com.google.android.apps.docs/files

And from there you can simply copy or better yet move the file(s) to another folder. Problem solved! I hope this could help you also. By the way, I not sure if the location is constant even if you are using a different brand/model of Android smartphone.

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Comments

27 responses to “Where did Google Drive Stored my Offline Files?”

  1. Derek Deviny Avatar
    Derek Deviny

    Thank you. Location was accurate on ADR6300 with Condemned V14 ROM

    Reply
    1. whatswithjeff Avatar
      whatswithjeff

      Thanks for confirming that. ^_^

      Reply
  2. Ron Preedy Avatar
    Ron Preedy

    Thanks! Works on Galaxy Ace with 2.2.1

    Reply
    1. whatswithjeff Avatar
      whatswithjeff

      That’s great! perhaps the path is similar to all android devices. I’m not sure with tablets though or on ICS.

      Reply
  3. DFD Avatar
    DFD

    CAN’T WORK ON NOTE 4.0.3

    Reply
  4. mehughes124 Avatar
    mehughes124

    I tried this trick with an image, but no app could open the file. I have a hunch that it was somehow encrypted.

    Reply
    1. bpelhos Avatar
      bpelhos

      You should switch off the encryption of offline files in Drive, on your phone. After the switch off it downloads again all the files (that you marked as offline).
      Now you could browse the /Android/data/com.google.android.apps.docs/files folder on your SDcard and you would be able to open the files (for example an mp3 file with a music player app).

      Reply
      1. jeff Avatar
        jeff

        Where do you turn off the encryption of offline files?

        Reply
        1. austin Avatar
          austin

          just open the app,->options(top right hand corner for tablets)->settings and it should be right their on the list of settings

          Reply
          1. flo0 Avatar
            flo0

            Great help
            turning off the encryption did the trick

  5. austin Avatar
    austin

    acer iconia 4.0.3 doc. files are there but they are either an empty ZIP(which i normally can extract) or in a .doc or .docx file that is unopenable by all the best doc editors except one, and the one that opens it just give me a ton of crap symbols. Google is encrypting all the stuff

    Reply
  6. austin Avatar
    austin

    and i now read the comment above mine *facepalm*

    Reply
  7. Andy Avatar
    Andy

    Thank you very muc. But how can I access /Android/data/com.google.android.apps.docs/files folder? I want to copy some music files from that folder to my SD card so that my music player can play them without opening Google Drive.

    Reply
    1. jeff Avatar
      jeff

      You need to have root access, you need to root your smartphone and use a root explorer. From there, just copy or transfer the files to another folder in your sdCard

      Reply
  8. Aaron Avatar
    Aaron

    This worked for me, many thanks.

    Reply
  9. Steve Avatar
    Steve

    Thanks for this. My files were a couple of folders further down the structure, but the path you gave put me on the right, err, path 🙂

    Jeff: you don’t need to root your device if (as is generally the case) these files are on the SD card. There are masses of file managers available on the Play Store, and any of them will enable you to navigate to the appropriate folder and move the file. I’m no Android expert, but my understanding is that you only need root access if you want to get at the memory on the phone/tablet itself, as opposed to the SD card.

    Reply
    1. jeff Avatar
      jeff

      Yes Steve, we root the phone to get root access and see the files we don’t usually see from the SD card and internal memory.
      Thanks for the tip Steve.

      Reply
  10. Will Avatar
    Will

    Worked great on my Motorola Droid 4! Thanks!

    Reply
  11. Mike Avatar
    Mike

    It turns out that it’s a bit different on my google nexus 7 (Dec 2012), android 4.2.1., but thanks for getting me started Jeff!

    I downloaded the free “file manager” from the Google play store.
    Then installed/activated “Google drive”
    Then I put one file with specific name in the drive via the web and made it “available offline”.
    Then I used the file manager to search for the name of that file and found this location:
    /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.google.android.apps.docs/files

    I hope this also helps others,
    cheers!

    Reply
  12. gupin suri Avatar
    gupin suri

    thanks loacation is same in Micromax Canvas 2 as well…

    Reply
  13. piyush.msh20 Avatar
    piyush.msh20

    thanks it worked on Sony Xperia too.

    Reply
  14. David Avatar
    David

    I have an mp3 audio file that opens and plays fine from the offline location. However, when I copied it to the external SD card, just as you did, the same music player now says it can’t open it. Weird!

    Reply
    1. jeff Avatar
      jeff

      Well that’s really weird. I haven’t encountered that problem before. Perhaps the SD card is faulty or has bad blocks?

      Reply
  15. Dinakaran Avatar
    Dinakaran

    Thank you.
    You saved my time 🙂

    Reply
  16. Mitch Avatar
    Mitch

    Thanks, exactly what I was looking for!

    Reply
  17. Peter Avatar
    Peter

    I have a galaxy tab 2 10.1 wifi , i couldnt find it . it just updated 4.2.2

    Reply
  18. iwillneverposthereagain Avatar
    iwillneverposthereagain

    This was my location to the music I saved. I did not have an SD Card.

    LGE Andriod Phone USB

    /Internal%20storage/Android/data/com.google.android.apps.docs/files/pinned_docs_files_do_not_edit/

    Try ctrl+h ? I don’t think it’s hidden though

    Reply

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