I've noticed that Google Drive is using quite a bit of my system resources. My task manager shows it utilizing 2% of the CPU, 900MB of RAM, and a significant 20MB/s of network usage. I've had my PC running for about two hours and haven't done anything with the files stored on Drive. I only started Steam to play a game. The files in Google Drive include pictures and work projects. Both my laptop and home PC are connected to it, and while auto-sync is enabled, I haven't worked on those projects for a week, so I wouldn't expect any changes to be synced right now. Is this level of resource use typical?
5 Answers
Some resource use is expected, but that seems high if it's been consistent for a couple of hours. It might still be syncing or scanning something in the background. This can happen after starting up or after updates. Check the Drive status, and if it says syncing, that would explain the usage. If it looks stuck, try restarting Drive.
That actually doesn't seem too extreme except for that 20MB/s network usage, which is pretty high. Are you sure that's not actually 20Mb? Have you looked into what files it's syncing or downloading?
If you're worried, you could ditch the app entirely and just use the web version instead. I didn't even realize they had an app like OneDrive!
Have you checked the syncing status in the Google Drive app? It might give you a clue about what’s going on.
It shows it's stuck on scanning one folder that has my coding project. I don’t get why it's trying to process that when I haven't touched it recently.
It’s likely due to file syncing, similar to how Dropbox works. It can really kick in after you start your computer or if there are updates.
That's interesting! I noticed that mine was syncing a free folder with a coding project that's been unchanged since 2023. I wonder why it would get stuck on that.
I didn't know that either! But I like having the app. I just want to figure out this resource usage first.