How to Download a Whole Shared Google Drive Folder, Hundreds of Subfolders and All

A colleague shares a folder of project files. A relative shares every family photo since 2010. A government office or an archive shares a collection of scanned records, divided into hundreds of subfolders. You click Download, and the trouble starts.

For a small folder, the browser is fine. For a big one, it is the wrong tool, and knowing why saves an evening of retrying.

Why the browser struggles with big folders

• It zips first. Drive has to pack the folder into zip files before anything downloads, and a large folder is often split into several separate zips.
• An interruption means starting over. If the connection drops halfway through a large zip, there's usually no resuming it.
• You can't easily tell what's missing. After unzipping several parts, there's no simple check that every file in every subfolder actually arrived.
• No second pass. If the folder gets new files next month, the browser can't fetch just those; it's the whole thing again.

The tool that does this: rclone

The open-source program rclone is the long-standing answer for moving whole folder trees between cloud storage and your computer. It speaks Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, S3 and dozens of other services, retries failed transfers and skips files that are already there. Its only real drawback is that it runs from the command line, with a configuration step that asks a long series of technical questions. That puts it out of reach for most people.

Step by step with Cloudburst

1. Connect Google Drive once

Choose Google Drive and sign in through your browser. Because rclone's shared Google sign-in app is being retired during 2026, Cloudburst walks you through creating your own free Google app first. It's a one-time step of about five minutes, and every later Google Drive connection reuses it.

2. Paste the shared link, or browse

Paste the link to the folder someone shared with you, or browse your own Drive and "Shared with me" in a folder tree and pick exactly the folder you want.

3. Check the size, pick a destination

A dry run shows how big the download is before it starts, so you know whether that drive has room. Choose where it should go; the folder structure is kept exactly as it is in Drive.

4. Let it run, and run it again if it stops

Transfers that drop are retried automatically. If the PC sleeps or the connection goes down for longer, start the same download again from History: files already on your disk are skipped, so it picks up the rest.

A few honest notes

• It's Windows only: Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit.
• Windows SmartScreen will warn you the first time. The app isn't code-signed yet, so choose "More info", then "Run anyway". You only do this once.
• It downloads what you're allowed to see. A shared link only works if the folder is shared with you or with anyone who has the link; Cloudburst doesn't get around permissions.
• Your files go straight to your PC. Cloudburst has no server of its own; connections and history are kept in a folder next to the app.

The short version

For a few files, the browser is fine. For a folder with hundreds of subfolders, copy it file by file with something that retries, skips what you already have and keeps the structure. rclone does that; Cloudburst puts it behind a sign-in button and a progress bar.

Related reading

Frequently asked questions