Google Drive status

How we check Google Drive

We watch drive.google.com from all five of our probe regions, every 2 minutes. A region that sees a failure does not make this page say "down" on its own: a second region has to agree first, the same confirmation rule every YoPingMe monitor uses.

We watch the host Drive itself is served from and pin the response an anonymous request receives, rather than assuming a 2xx. Google's status dashboard covers every Workspace product on one page, so a Drive-specific reading is a narrower and more direct signal than the dashboard alone, the same reasoning as this site's Gmail page.

What is Google Drive?

Google Drive is cloud storage built into the same account as Gmail and the rest of Google Workspace, which makes it the default place a huge number of people and businesses keep files that matter. Its position inside that shared account is also why an incident touching one Workspace product can sometimes touch another, and why it is worth being specific about which piece has actually failed before assuming the worst.

The most common source of trouble that looks like an outage is not an outage at all, but permissions. A file whose sharing setting was changed, a link that expired, or an account that lost access during an organisation-wide change will all produce a file that will not open, while Drive itself answers every request normally. Checking who currently has access to a specific file resolves far more of these than waiting ever does.

Drive's relationship with Gmail runs in one direction worth knowing. Attachments above a size threshold in Gmail are stored through Drive rather than in Gmail's own mail storage, so a Drive incident can prevent a large attachment from uploading or downloading even while sending and receiving ordinary email continues normally. The connection does not run the other way: a problem specific to Gmail's mail-handling systems does not affect files that are already sitting in Drive.

Sync clients add their own category of trouble that is local rather than platform-wide. A desktop client that lost its connection, has a stale authentication token, or hit a local disk or permissions issue on the machine it runs on can appear to be a Drive outage from the user's chair while the web version of Drive works without any problem in another browser tab. Restarting the client or checking its own connection status is usually a faster diagnosis than waiting on a status page.

Search inside Drive is the last thing worth understanding separately from storage. A file that has just been uploaded or renamed can take a short time to appear in search results even though it already exists and opens normally, because indexing runs slightly behind the write itself. That gap is expected behaviour, not a sign that anything is wrong, and it closes on its own without intervention.

Frequently asked questions

Is Google Drive down right now?

Check the board above; it reflects our own probes against Drive from all five of our regions, refreshed every couple of minutes and confirmed across two regions before this page would call it down.

A file will not open or sync but Drive shows up here. What should I check?

Check the file's own sharing settings and the sync client's own status first, since both cause far more trouble than an outage does. A file whose access was changed, a permission that expired, or a desktop sync client stuck on a stale connection can all block one file or one folder while the rest of Drive works normally.

Does a Drive outage affect Gmail attachments too?

It can, in one direction specifically. Attachments above a certain size in Gmail are stored through Drive rather than Gmail's own mail storage, so a Drive incident can block uploading or downloading a large attachment even while ordinary email keeps sending and receiving. It does not generally run the other way - a Gmail-specific problem does not reach files already stored in Drive.

Is this the same information as the Google Workspace Status Dashboard?

No. Their dashboard reports what Google has confirmed internally, across every Workspace product including Drive, Gmail, Calendar, and Meet, in more detail than any outside probe can offer. This page reports what our own probes measured against Drive specifically, from outside Google's infrastructure, on a fixed schedule, whether or not Google has posted an update yet.

My files are there but search inside Drive is not finding them. Is that an outage?

Rarely. Search indexing for newly added or recently changed files can lag slightly behind the upload itself, so a file that exists and opens fine may not appear in search for a short window. This is a property of how indexing works rather than a fault, and it resolves on its own without any action needed.