Unable to Index Google Drive as External Volume

I was able to get an Alfred work around to work to search Google Drive streamed files on an MacBook Pro running Monterey. Apparently I can't post hyperlinks here, but if you google "Searching Google Drive with an Alfred workflow" and look for the blog post from November 22, that shows the solution that is working for me.

Yes, I bet this would work. Unfortunately, for some of us who use Google Drive for work or otherwise have large amounts of data in it, mirroring eats up too much local hard drive space (in my case, my hard drive would run out of space if mirrored) hence the dependence on streaming and the need to search streamed files.

Did Not work for me. Started with step 3 backwards to 1 and rebooted. Checked steps 1 & 2 still set - they were. Still cannot search drive files stream (I don't use a mirror drive as that would take space on 4 computer hard drives and defeat the purpose of using google-drive)

I'm here facing the same problem. I'm following the topic and hope for a working fix! I'm using Stream files because it's a shared G drive and have over 200GB on files. A working search is highly appreciated!

Maybe in the upcoming 12.1 update?🤞

With Monterey we've lost what was working in Big Sur. Hope Apple and/or Google will get this fixed.

My "workaround" is to have Google Drive open in one of my Chrome Tabs. When I need a file I search under that tab.

Not perfect, but it works - have 93 GB of files I access daily.

Tried all the work arounds ... nothing worked. Finally had to get a 3rd party app and pay to upgrade it to get the packet to find files. It does find them... but does not work when saving files. It helps but this issue needs fixed. Sooner please. It has gone on too long. Won't upgrade my laptop as indexing is still working there. My iMac is a mess!!!!! I avoid using it more and more. Are you listening Apple fix this or others too will start to avoid using your products.

I agree. This has messed me up ever since upgrading to Monterey, complete disaster for work performance. The only thing that has somewhat worked is the program "Alfred", but that is only a half fix because you can't search for files while using other programs like word or when attaching an email. Apple needs to do something here as this is completely ridiculous.

My workaround solution from Google:

mdutil /Volumes/GoogleDrive -s

mdutil /Volumes/Google Drive -E

sudo mdutil /Volumes/GoogleDrive -E

This has not changed anything - my files are still not searchable in Spotlight OR in Finder.

I haven't actually seen from anyone that downgrading to Big Sur will allow enabling of Spotlight indexing of Google Drive. Just want to confirm to that it does. After setting up my new MacBook Pro, I restored my 2017 MacBook Air, installing Big Sur Version 11.6.2 (20G314), then installing Google Drive Version 54.0.3.0 (Intel) and set my "My Drive syncing options" to "Stream Files" (the default setting on installation). I've got 97 GB of storage on My Drive so the status showed as "synchronizing" for several hours. When the status changed to "Everything is up to date" I tried searching and... was disappointed that Searchlight was still not finding files on Google Drive. I then opened a Terminal window and ran the following command: "sudo mdutil /Volumes/GoogleDrive -E /" and... Voila! I can now search all of my Google Drive even though the files are not downloaded! Mischief managed, for now.

I've installed Monterey on my new MacBook Pro. It has a 1 TB hard drive, so I've got the My Drive syncing options on it set to "Mirror Files" and, of course am able to search files through Spotlight because copies actually exist on my local hard drive.

So there are two work arounds that 100% restore Spotlight searchability to the experience before Monterey. The second is a lot less work but requires sufficient hard disk space to hold everything on your My Drive (if there's a way to pick and choose what is mirrored I haven't figured it out). The first works perfectly too once implemented, but requires a fair effort to get there.

None of this is to suggest that Apple shouldn't fix the problem and at the very least, publicly acknowledge it and provide a status report on plans to fix, but I'm happy to be "back in business" again.

I can confirm that after downgrading to Big Sur my iMac 2017 is indexing Google Drive again (streaming not mirroring). I used Internet recovery (restart, then press and hold the Cmd + Option + R ) to downgrade my Mac.

Here’s the link you probably already saw

https://www.alfredapp.com/blog/guides-and-tutorials/google-drive-workflow/

if it was working and stopped, I’d remove the workflow and give it another shot. You may even need to uninstall and reinstall Alfred.

Ok I think I know what is wrong in my instalation. This workflow works pretty on english language. So maybe you know where I can change the path to the google folder? I'm not good in this code thing but I think it can be change....

I did the most recent Mac update hoping that would fix it. It appears that spotlight search has become worse and it cannot find files that it could find before. I will have to re-index everything and try again. Sigh.

@PurpleCamel, Where do you see the "Search your Google Drive files" ? You said "on top" - but where is that? Is that in finder? Or is that at drive.google.com? Or in the menubar? I cannot find that anywhere.

Apple you are preventing me from adding another computer. I need one for my assistant, but it is USELESS without being able to access google drive files, save to google drive, and print to google drive. Will this ever get fixed?