Google Drive?

NOT REALLYA prototype of the interface is possible, but the durable product depends on difficult systems beyond the UI. Build a safer adjacent workflow instead.

BUILD FIRST

A non-sensitive or read-only version of the core experience
A manual review step wherever correctness or trust matters
A narrow companion tool that removes a real piece of work

LEAVE FOR LATER

Regulated decisions, payments, or irreversible actions
Claims of correctness, compliance, or uptime that the MVP cannot support
Sensitive integrations until security, support, and auditability are ready

RESEARCH NOTES

What this tool actually does.

Checked 2026-09-06

Google Drive is Google's cloud storage and file-sharing service, available via web, Android/iOS apps, and a desktop sync client (Drive for desktop). Each Google Account includes 15 GB of free storage shared across Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos; paid Google One/Workspace plans scale to 5 TB per user and beyond. Users upload and organize files in folders, edit Google Docs/Sheets/Slides, Microsoft Office files, and PDFs in real time, and can open more than 100 file types for preview. Sharing supports edit/comment/view roles, link sharing, expiration dates, and up to 600 individual email addresses per file; a Docs file can be edited on up to 100 concurrent tabs/devices. Collaboration features include shared drives (Workspace Business/Enterprise), comments, version history, and integrations with third-party apps such as Slack, Zoom, Salesforce, Atlassian, and SAP. AI-powered storage and sea

SOURCES

RESEARCHED BUILD PROMPT

Give this to your coding agent.

Build a self-hosted personal file storage, sync, and sharing web app — a focused, non-branded replacement for the core Google Drive workflow, not a Google product clone. Core workflow: a user uploads files or folders via drag-and-drop or a small desktop tray client; files are stored in object storage and organized into user-created folders; the user shares a file or folder by link or email with role-based access (viewer/commenter/editor); recipients preview or edit in the browser or download; every overwrite creates a version; search finds files by name, metadata, and OCR'd text from images/PDFs; deleted files go to trash with 30-day restore. User-facing requirements: responsive web UI (upload with progress, folder tree, rename/move, share dialog with roles and expiry, activity feed, version history, full-text search, common file-type previews) plus a minimal CLI/tray sync client that watches a local folder and mirrors changes. Technical requirements: JWT/OAuth auth; PostgreSQL metadata; S3-compatible object storage; resumable chunked uploads; versioning via immutable object keys plus a version table; server-side permission checks on every read/write; search via Postgres full-text or Meilisearch with a Tesseract OCR worker for images/PDFs; previews via browser-native viewers and PDF.js; optional WebDAV endpoint for third-party sync tools; docker-compose deployment with migrations and backup scripts. Implementation approach: monolith API (Fastify or Go) + React frontend + Python worker for OCR/preview generation, kept as one deployable service initially; WebSocket or polling for share notifications. Explicitly out of scope: real-time multi-user rich-text/spreadsheet editing (Docs/Sheets/Slides) and the office suite, enterprise/admin consoles, AI assistants, mobile apps, offline mode, and Google Drive's brand, logo, iconography, marketing site, and UI — do not copy any proprietary assets or visual design. Deliver source plus a README with setup (env vars, object-storage config, seed data), architecture notes, and a candid "Important limitations" section covering no concurrent editing, single-region storage assumptions, no offline mode, and sync-client fidelity limits.

Visit the official product page