Google Drive Desktop not Starting

[BoI_Admin]

Hi Community,

We have a user having issues with his Google Drive Desktop app and despite searching and testing multiple fixes, it's still happening.

The issue is that the app is not willing to boot and stays frozen without opening. We tried deleting the app from the mac and re-installing, but it didn't work.
We tried cleaning all possible cache from Google Drive, uninstall the app, reinstall it. Nothing.

The GDrive App version is 51.0.14.0 (Apple Silicon) and the user is on MacOS Big Sur 11.6

Here is a snapshot of what we see (app ever-loading and not starting/opening):

.App ever-loading but not opening/starting

Has any of you had a similar issue?

Any help/feedback/comment would be appreciated.

[icrew]

A few troubleshooting things to try, to maybe at least to narrow it down a little:

1) Does the same thing happen if you try it on a new user account on the same Mac?

2) Do you even get to the Drive for desktop login screen? (It sounds like “no”.) If you do, try logging in as a different Google User.

3) Is it maybe asking for permissions in System Preferences > Security that you haven’t granted? Like to access the disk?

Hope that helps, at least a little!

Ian 

[BoI_Admin · Accepted solution]

Thank you @icrew for your answer.
We actually got help on this one from a Google Workspace Support Specialist and he provided us with the proper solution in our case. Here is it below in case anybody in the community find it helpful:

⚠️ If you have been working with Google Drive file offline, please make sure to back it all up with GDrive online before continuing with the next steps otherwise these will be lost.

After backing your files up please do the following:

1. Quit Drive for Desktop (or force quite via the Activity Monitor)

2. Navigate to Finder and to Applications

3. Remove Drive for Desktop by dragging it to trash and empty the same after

4. Navigate to /Library/Application Support/Google/DriveFS/ and remove/delete this Folder

5. Empty trash

6. Download/Reinstall Drive for Desktop

7. Make sure that the full disk permissions are granted in System Preferences > Privacy

8. Launch Drive for Desktop

This will force recreate the content cache folder and should potentially fix any remaining issues.

[lauverstraeten]

I know this is years later, but I still wanted to say thank you for this very helpful step by step. I wasn't able to launch Google Drive on my Mac anymore for unclear reasons and this resolved my issue in no time!

[foolet]

Your solution didn’t work for me, but I finally solved it using another method with the help of ChatGPT. Just type the following command in Terminal: "sudo /Applications/Google\ Drive.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Drive", then enter your password. This grants Google Drive new access to the app (which apparently was the issue)!