GMail Drive Shell Extension

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moongirl
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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.


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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.

Ever since Google started to offer users a Gmail e-mail account, which includes storage space of 2000 megabytes, you have had plenty of storage space but not a lot to fill it up with. With GMail Drive you can easily copy files to your Gmail account and retrieve them again.
When you create a new file using GMail Drive, it generates an e-mail and posts it to your account. The e-mail appears in your normal Inbox folder, and the file is attached as an e-mail attachment. GMail Drive periodically checks your mail account (using the Gmail search function) to see if new files have arrived and to rebuild the directory structures. But basically GMail Drive acts as any other hard-drive installed on your computer.
You can copy files to and from the GMail Drive folder simply by using drag'n'drop like you're used to with the normal Explorer folders.

Because the Gmail files will clutter up your Inbox folder, you may wish to create a filter in Gmail to automatically move the files (prefixed with the GMAILFS letters in the subject) to your archived mail folder.

Please note that GMail Drive is still an experimental tool. There's still a number of limitations of the file-system (such as total filename size must be less than 40 characters). Since the tool hooks up with the free Gmail Service provided by Google, changes in the Gmail system may break the tool's ability to function. I cannot guarantee that files stored in this manner will be accessible in the future.

14 Jan 2005 update: While Google keeps improving their Gmail service, they also tend to break the tool's ability to connect to Gmail. Version 1.0.5 was released to overcome the latest changes. Please be aware that support for this tool may suspend at any time if Google decides to block its use.
17 Sep 2005 update: Google restructured the Gmail login procedures again and previous versions of the tool fail to log in. The new version also adds the ability to double-click to launch files and FileOpen dialog support.
4 Dec 2005 update: Several improvements: Security warning on unsafe files, better XP-look / drag-images, new graphics by Jay Hilwig, better error reporting, Win64 bit support, fewer refreshes.

Installation Requirements
Internet Explorer 5 or better
Installation Guide

* Extract the ZIP file to a temporary folder.
* Run the Setup application.
http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm
The free download at this site allows you to use a GMail account in the manner of an external hard-drive.
It creates an icon on your desktop which allows you to drag and drop files into your GMail account for storage.
Updates to GMail could render the tool useless and your files irretrievable.
Temporary storage for large files could be a perfect use for this tool.
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nesman
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I used that for a while. It's really easy to work with. It pretty much puts an extra drive in "My Computer" that directly accesses your gmail files. Be warned, they do monitor the amount of traffic that goes through there. If you try to move a gig or so, they will lock down your account for about 24 hours. :D It was worth it to see the error message they displayed for it though.
http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2006-01-10-n89.html
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moongirl
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nesman wrote:I used that for a while. It's really easy to work with. It pretty much puts an extra drive in "My Computer" that directly accesses your gmail files. Be warned, they do monitor the amount of traffic that goes through there. If you try to move a gig or so, they will lock down your account for about 24 hours. :D It was worth it to see the error message they displayed for it though.
http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2006-01-10-n89.html
Thanks Nes, I was hoping for your thoughts on this :)

There were other topics on the viksoe.dk site, but I was unsure of how up-to-date they were.
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