Google Drive 'The file is locked' error on Mac with Mirror Files

“File is locked” usually happens because Google Drive’s Mirror mode and macOS’s file locking don’t always play nice. What’s going on is Drive is trying to sync the file at the same time macOS apps (like Word, Excel, or even Preview) are writing to it, so the system treats it as locked.

First, make sure you’re on the latest Google Drive for desktop build (they’ve patched a lot of sync bugs recently). Second, try saving your work to a local non-Drive folder (like Desktop) and then moving it back into Drive once done, that avoids sync conflicts mid-edit.

If you want to keep working directly in Drive, disable “Mirror” temporarily and use “Stream” instead, since it handles file versioning better. Also check that you don’t have the same file open in two apps or on another device, as that can trigger the lock too.

tintin33 wrote:

Thanks so much. I will try that! I currently use google's "my drive" for all my files. Would you recommend switching over to "Documents" on my Macbook instead, and synching files from there? Thanks for your support!

Have you considered using iCloud Drive? Because it's an Apple product, it plays very nicely with other Apple Products. And because it's not Google, it has superior privacy protections.

Set up iCloud Drive on all your devices - Apple Support

Store files in iCloud Drive on Mac - Apple Support