As of now, Google has yet to release an official backup/sync client for Linux, and as a frequent WSL2 user, I was after a solution that would allow automated backups to Google drive from the WSL2 Linux file system/distro.

I’m a big fan of both Windows & Linux, and the evolution of WSL2 (with an actual Linux kernel) is making it easier to work in an almost “real” Linux environment without the need for third-party virtualization software. Using rclone with WSL2 gives me the option of restoring project files from a recent backup should I accidentally trash my WSL2 Linux distro.

The following write-up describes an approach for using an open source package, rclone, to automate backups from Linux to Google drive.

Download/install rclone:

To download/install rclone:

$ cd $HOME
$ curl https://rclone.org/install.sh | sudo bash
...
rclone v1.53.1 has successfully installed.

This installs the binary to location /usr/bin/rclone.

Before being able to configure access for rclone to our target Google Drive account, we need to enable the Google Drive API and create appropriate credentials.

#google-drive #rclone #linux #automate #backup