There are methods to sync my local git repository over to my google drive via google drive sync windows application, but I was wondering whether I could bypass its need altogether.
Fro eg.
$ git remote add origin https://drive.google.com/<my_folder>/<my_repository>.git
$ git push github master
No, you can't. There's no git running on Google drive.
I would also suggest against Google drive/Dropbox based solutions, and go for a git hosting solution instead. For example Bitbucket which offers some free private repositories. You can find some comparison information about different git hosting sites here.
As people have pointed out (and as OP already knows), you can put the bare repository inside your local Google Drive/Dropbox folder and work with that, however, there are caveats. The cloud services have their own systems for merging conflicts, and that doesn't really work with git. Consider the scenario:
You work with device A offline, push some commits to the bare repository in Google Drive folder, but because you are offline, those changes do not sync to the cloud.
You then forget about it, work with device B online, push commits to Google Drive folder, and those changes do get synced.
Device A becomes online - you now have a conflict in Google Drive.
This is, of course, recoverable, but inconvenient. I therefore recommend to use a solution that is designed precisely for git hosting.
Here is a very good article on the subject (archived version here, with the relevant parts reproduced here):
Lets say you have a project named johndoe with a file README like below:
/var/www/html/johndoe/
/var/www/html/johndoe/README
Initialise an empty Git repository here:
$ cd /var/www/html/johndoe
$ git init
$ git add README
$ git commit README -m "Initial commit."
Change the directory to where your Google Drive is located and initialize a bare repository:
$ cd /Users/myusername/Google\ Drive/
$ mkdir johndoe
$ cd johndoe
$ git init --bare
Go back to your working directory:
$ cd /var/www/html/johndoe
$ git remote add origin file:///Users/myusername/Google\ Drive/johndoe
$ git push origin master
To clone your Git repository from Google Drive:
$ cd /var/www/html/johndoe2
$ git clone file:///Users/myusername/Google\ Drive/johndoe
Eduardo Rosas has an article on how to do this using colab (only a browser required).
essentially you access your google drive using:
from google.colab import drive
drive.mount('/content/gdrive')
#cd to the google drive you using the magic command
%cd /content/gdrive/'My Drive'/[your drive folder for repo]
#check your directory location with
!pwd
#clone your repo - Note this exposes your password so don't make the notebook public
!git clone https://LaloCo:password%23@github.com/LaloCo/handson-ml.git
#I find using a github personal access token easier
!git clone https://user:PAT@github.com/repo
If you are running a Unix shell and have Google Drive locally installed on your machine, you can add a script to your .bash_profile or .zshrc file like this...
# Initialize a remote repo on "local" Google Drive and push to it for safekeeping.
function mkr() {
CWD=$(PWD)
REPONAME=${PWD##*/}
REPOPATH=/Users/Bob/Google\ Drive/Repos/$REPONAME
mkdir -p $REPOPATH
cd $REPOPATH
git init --bare
cd $CWD
git remote add origin $REPOPATH
git push origin master
}
Assuming you have already run git init, you can type mkr from the command line inside your local project directory. After this mkr step, you can run git push like normal as if it lives on GitHub, Bitbucket, etc. You just won't have the usual niceties from the remote side.
You can use google collab for the purpose.
and you are done
