Feature Request: Drive for Desktop - Windows "Desktop" folder redirection

Google Workspace Developers Q&A
1

The Google Drive for Desktop Windows app would be a stronger alternative to OneDrive if it supported Desktop folder redirection.

You can technically achieve this right now by changing Drive for Desktops’ sync mode to Mirroring, then setting a folder in your My Drive as the location for your Windows user’s “Desktop” library, but it unnecessarily syncs ALL your drive files down.

If Drive for Desktop could have a separate toggle for this, where it dedicates a folder in your Drive and singularly keeps an offline copy of that folder somewhere (say your user profile folder), then Windows could point to that folder as your Desktop folder and wa-la! Your desktop icons are backed up and synced across Windows devices!

Redirecting your Desktop folder to Google Drive in Stream mode does NOT work. Windows expects the user’s Desktop folder to be accessible during logon, which is before Drive for Desktop starts up. So explorer.exe essentially crashes and errors out.

2

There might be a slightly better middle-ground workaround that doesn’t require mirroring your entire Drive. Instead of redirecting the official Windows Desktop folder, you can use the “Other folders from your computer” sync option:

  1. Open Drive for Desktop preferences.

  2. Click Add folder.

  3. Select your local Windows Desktop folder (C:\Users\<Username>\Desktop).

  4. Choose Sync with Google Drive.

Let’s hope the product team introduces a dedicated backup toggle for standard shell folders on Windows (similar to how the Mac client handles it, or how OneDrive handles Backup). This might give you another option.