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GMail Drive Shell Extension

krmpradeep writes "GMail Drive is a Shell Namespace Extension that creates a virtual filesystem around your Google GMail account, allowing you to use GMail as a storage medium. GMail Drive creates a virtual filesystem on top of your Google GMail account and enables you to save and retrieve files stored on your GMail account directly from inside Windows Explorer. GMail Drive literally adds a new drive to your computer under the My Computer folder, where you can create new folders, copy and drag'n'drop files to."

11 of 377 comments (clear)

  1. For Linux too! by x4A6D74 · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://richard.jones.name/google-hacks/gmail-files ystem/gmail-filesystem.html

    Haven't tried it yet; I keep meaning to but school keeps getting in the way.

  2. Re:Works as advertised by erick99 · · Score: 5, Informative

    10MB limit applies. Oh well, still very cool.

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  3. Re:Nice, but doomed by Sneeper · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually Gmail *does* have a file size limit to incoming e-mails. As one person on the GMAIL Drive Forums states:

    It appears that Google has put a file size limit on "attachments". I've installed GMail Drive and tried a couple quick uploads. One was a tar.bz2 file that weighs in at 23MB. After dragging the file over to the GMail Drive window, it worked for a while then returned an error message stating that "File is too big. GMail does currently not support files larger than 10 Mb."

    The response confirms:

    Great point Steve. GMail does have an attachment size limit which does limit the usefulness of these file system extensions. One solution would be to handle file splitting in the tool.

    I don't have a gmail account, but anyone who does should be able to easily confirm this.

  4. Re:It came out, has thousands of members by lpontiac · · Score: 3, Informative

    Probably. Google News is still labeled "beta".

  5. Re:Nice, but doomed by wibs · · Score: 4, Informative

    yup, 10MB max attachment size. the help page for attachments also mentions that the encoding is so bloated that attachments of 6MB might hit the size limit, too (alright, they didn't use the word "bloated" but it seems a little absurd to me).

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  6. Re:Nice, but doomed by PayPaI · · Score: 5, Informative

    No, it's not really absurd. Base-64 encoding increases file size by something like 3/2. If you do not use base-64 encoding, then your files may become corrupted in transit.

  7. Re:It Works by killbill! · · Score: 4, Informative

    GMX.net has had 1GB (file storage & e-mail) over WebDAV for free for a while now.
    If you have a German or Austrian bank account, you can bump that to 5GB for 3 EUR a month or 10GB for 5 EUR a month.

    Btw the features of their email service just flat out rock. I'm quite sure they are unmatched worldwide. ('been a customer since 98 now ;))

    (I knew all those years learning German in high school weren't a waste of time ;p... Now then, how about you guys give us back the English version you had earlier?)

  8. Re:Nice, but doomed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    A byte is technically 0-255, and base-64 basically utilizes 6 out of 8 bits of the byte. (0-63, only using A-Z,a-z,0-9,and two others)
    Therefore anything base-64 encoded will be exactly 25% larger than it not.
    I don't see why they can't store the files as a binary attachment to the e-mail, instead of storing the data inside the e-mail as text, however.

  9. Re:Nice, but doomed by Alioth · · Score: 4, Informative

    It'll last plenty of time.

    It's impractical to use much of this storage unless you have an OC-45 to hand. The vast majority of people have internet connections with pathetic upstream bandwidth (128K, 256K - occasionally 512K - and very rarely more than that). It'll be fabulous for storing small files you want easy access to from anywhere, but pretty useless for storing large files or large quantities of small files simply due to the time it'll take to upload/download the files.

  10. Re:Nice, but doomed by polecat_redux · · Score: 4, Informative

    people tend to view OS bashing as flamebait around here, especially when it really isn't factual or called for.)

    I wasn't bashing Linux (I use it myself). In fact, I was simply pointing out that far less people use Linux (in a home-user context) than Windows - something that is entirely factual. Linux does not possess anywhere near the market share of Windows. This is the reason usage of that app would be more widespread... plain and simply, more exposure.

  11. Re:It came out, has thousands of members by generic-man · · Score: 3, Informative

    Lawyers have said that Google News can never be run for profit, not that it must remain in "lawyer-induced beta" like that headline claims. Google News qualifies for Fair Use provisions as long as it is not a for-profit entity. It doesn't matter whether you call it "alpha," "beta," or "Suzy." Google News cannot make money; its entire purpose is to copy little samples of images and news from other companies' web sites.

    Now if you want to start syndicating Google News yourself, Google has some news for you.

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