Sync Google Drive
Sync folders and files from your Google Drive into Train so Centrus can answer questions from them. This guide covers connecting, choosing what to sync, keeping it up to date, and what happens when you remove a sync or disconnect.
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Before you start
Google Drive is connected from the Integrations tab of Train. You need Train access to see it. Admins always have it, and an admin can give it to anyone else from Edit users and roles.
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Import and sync your Google Drive documents to use with Centrus.
Connect with Centrus to access your files securely.
- Import documents from Google Drive
- Sync entire folders or select individual files
- Smart incremental sync preserves your tags
- Keep your knowledge base up to date
Import and sync your OneDrive documents to use with Centrus.
Connect with Centrus to access your files securely.
- Import documents from OneDrive
- Sync entire folders or select individual files
- Smart incremental sync preserves your tags
- Keep your knowledge base up to date
Import and sync your SharePoint documents to use with Centrus.
Connect with Centrus to access your sites and document libraries securely.
- Import documents from SharePoint sites
- Sync specific document libraries for AI analysis
- Access team sites and communication sites
- Keep your knowledge base up to date
Import and sync documents from your Dropbox.
Browse folders and tick any folders or files to sync to Centrus.
- Import documents from Dropbox
- Sync entire folders or individual files
- Keep your knowledge base up to date
Import and sync your Microsoft Teams conversations to use with Centrus.
Connect with Centrus to access your Teams channels securely.
- Import conversations from Teams channels
- Create AI-searchable knowledge from chats
- Keep your team's shared knowledge accessible
- 1Train, in the menu on the left.
- 2The Integrations tab, next to Files.
- 3The Google Drive card. It reads Available until you connect.
- 4The Sources bar, which shows how much of your storage is used.
The connection belongs to you rather than to the whole organisation. Each person signs in with their own Google account, and the folders you sync, your list of active syncs and your Cloud Folders on the Files tab are shown only to you. The documents themselves are shared in the usual way: once a synced file has a tag, anyone with that tag can get answers from it.
When you connect, Google asks you to allow Centrus to see, edit, create and delete files in your Google Drive. Centrus asks for full access because shared drives need it, and because the same connection lets you ask Centrus in chat to save a file it has made into your Drive. Train itself only imports the folders and files you tick, and it never changes or deletes anything in Drive.
OneDrive, SharePoint, Dropbox and Microsoft Teams connect from the same tab and work in a similar way. See Sync OneDrive, Sync SharePoint, Sync Dropbox and Sync Microsoft Teams.
Connect Google Drive
- 1Open Train and click the Integrations tab.
- 2On the Google Drive card, click Connect.
- 3Google opens in the same browser tab. Choose the Google account that holds the files you want, then allow the access Centrus asks for.
- 4Google sends you back to the Integrations tab. The card now reads Connected and lists the folders in your Drive.
Import and sync your Google Drive documents to use with Centrus.
Connect with Centrus to access your files securely.
- Import documents from Google Drive
- Sync entire folders or select individual files
- Smart incremental sync preserves your tags
- Keep your knowledge base up to date
Import and sync documents from your Google Drive.
Browse folders and select any folder or individual file to sync to Centrus.
- 1Connect takes you to Google to sign in.
- 2Back in Centrus, the card reads Connected and lists your folders.
Google always asks which account to use, even when you are already signed in, so you can choose a work account over a personal one. If you cancel at Google or the sign-in fails, you come back to the same tab with the card still reading Available and no message on screen. Click Connect to try again. Learn More, beside Connect, opens a short summary of how the integration works.
Choose what to sync
Once you are connected, the card lists Shared Drives first, followed by the folders at the top level of your My Drive. Click a folder to open it. Its files are listed first and the folders inside it after them, and you can keep opening folders to go deeper. The list scrolls inside the card.
- 1Tick a folder to sync every file Centrus can read inside it, including the files in every folder below it.
- 2Alternatively, open a folder and tick individual files when you only want some of them.
- 3To sync from a shared drive, open Shared Drives and tick the drive, or a folder inside it. Shared Drives itself has no checkbox.
- 4Click Sync selected, either in the bar under the list or at the foot of the card, and wait for the confirmation message.
Import and sync documents from your Google Drive.
Browse folders and select any folder or individual file to sync to Centrus.
- 1Refresh reloads the list from Drive and clears your ticks.
- 2Shared Drives holds the shared drives you belong to. Open it to tick one.
- 3Files Centrus cannot read are greyed out and marked Unsupported.
- 4The selection bar counts what you have ticked. Clear removes the ticks.
- 5See Active Syncs lists everything you have synced so far.
- Each ticked folder and each ticked file becomes a sync of its own, so ticking five files adds five syncs. Ticks on items inside a ticked folder are ignored, because the folder already includes them.
- Google Docs and Google Sheets show a 0 beside their name, because Drive does not report a size for them. They sync normally.
- Files saved at the top level of My Drive, outside any folder, are not listed. Move them into a folder first.
- Each folder shows up to 100 items, counting files and folders together, and Shared Drives shows up to 10 shared drives. If a folder holds more than 100 items, split it into subfolders so that every file is listed and synced.
The sync runs while you wait, and a large folder can take a few minutes. When it finishes, a message such as Synced 1 folder, 2 files appears at the top of the screen. If it fails, the message reads Failed to sync the selection.
Check your active syncs
After your first sync, a See Active Syncs button appears at the foot of the card with a count of your syncs. Click it to switch the card to a table of everything you have synced from Google Drive. Back to Integration returns you to the folder list.
Manage your active Google Drive folder syncs.
- 1Status is Active, Paused or Error.
- 2Last Sync shows how long ago the sync last finished. Hover over it for the exact date and time.
- 3Re-sync, Automatic Re-sync, Pause or Resume, and Remove, from left to right.
- 4Resync All re-syncs every Active row at once.
- Location shows the name, the type of sync and its path in Drive. The type reads Personal Folder, Shared Drive or Personal File. Folders and files inside a shared drive are also labelled as personal, so only a whole shared drive reads Shared Drive.
- Documents counts the files the sync has added to Train.
- Last Sync reads Never if the sync has not yet finished successfully.
The table lists only your own syncs. A colleague who connects their own Google account sees theirs rather than yours. A sync that has brought in no documents after five minutes, such as an empty folder or one that holds only unsupported files, is removed from the list automatically.
On most laptop and phone screens the table is wider than the card, so it scrolls sideways. Scroll or swipe it to the right to reach the buttons in the Actions column.
Centrus
Manage your active Google Drive folder syncs.
Keep files up to date
A sync copies your files into Train at a point in time. When files change in Drive, Train catches up the next time the sync runs, either when you click Re-sync or on a schedule you set.
- Re-sync, the circular arrows on a row, runs that sync now. New files are added, files that have changed in Drive are replaced with the new version, and files that have been deleted from Drive or moved out of the folder are removed from Train. Unchanged files are skipped.
- Resync All, under the table, does the same for every Active row. Paused rows and rows in Error are left out, which is why its count can be lower than the number of rows.
- Centrus spots a change from the file's modified date, size or checksum in Drive. When a file is updated, its date on the Files tab changes to the time of that sync.
To have a sync run on its own, set up automatic re-sync:
- 1Click the clock on the row you want to schedule.
- 2Choose a Re-sync interval: every 1, 2, 4, 8, 24 or 48 hours.
- 3Click Enable. A message confirms the interval, and the clock on the row turns green.
Manage your active Google Drive folder syncs.
Automatic Re-sync
Set up automatic re-syncing for this folder. Centrus will automatically check for changes and sync any new, updated or deleted documents at your chosen interval.
Re-sync interval
Every 24 hoursThe sync will run automatically in the background. Your existing tags will be preserved.
- 1The folder or file you are scheduling.
- 2Re-sync interval, from every hour to every 48 hours.
- 3Enable turns the schedule on. Once it is on, the button reads Update and Disable appears beside it.
The interval is counted from the last time the sync finished. Centrus checks for syncs that are due every 30 minutes, so a sync can run up to half an hour after its interval has passed. Scheduled syncs only run while the row is Active, so pausing a sync, or a sync failing with an error, stops them until the row is Active again.
Tag synced files
Synced files arrive in Train with no tag, just like files you upload. Centrus answers from files that carry a tag a chat is allowed to search, and until a file has a tag, only admins and the person who synced it can see it. Tag synced files on the Files tab in the same way as uploads. Upload files explains tagging, including how to tag several files at once.
Riverside House SLA.pdfZone 3 panel manual.pdfPlant room log 2026.xlsxSite induction notes.docxSynced files arrive without a tag- Tags stay in place when a file is updated. A re-sync replaces the content and keeps every tag on the file, whether you run it yourself or it runs on a schedule.
- To find synced files that still need a tag, open Filter and choose Source, then Google Drive. Open it again and choose Tag, then No Tag, to narrow the list to Google Drive files without a tag.
- If you rename a synced file in Train, the name from Drive comes back the next time the file changes in Drive.
If you delete a synced file on the Files tab, the next sync adds it again without its tags. To keep a file out of Train for good, move it out of the synced folder in Drive, or remove the whole sync.
Find synced files in Train
Synced files appear in the main list on the Files tab alongside your uploads, with a small Google Drive logo beside the file icon. There are two quick ways to see only the files from Drive.
The first is Cloud Folders, at the foot of the Folders card under the upload box. Each of your Google Drive syncs has its own entry with a document count and the time it last synced, and a sync that is paused or has an error says so beside its name. Cloud Folders lists only your own syncs.
Manual Folders
Cloud Folders
Google Drive227SharePoint214- 1Click Google Drive to see every file from your Google Drive syncs.
- 2Click a single sync to see only its files, with its path and when it last synced.
The second is the Source filter, which also shows Google Drive files your colleagues have synced and tagged, as long as you have one of their tags. Open Filter above the list, choose Source and then Google Drive. Clear turns the filter off.
Riverside House SLA.pdfZone 3 panel manual.pdfRate card 2026.xlsxGas Safe RAMS template.docxPlant room log 2026.xlsxSite induction notes.docxPause, resume or remove a sync
Each row in Active Syncs has its own controls, so you can stop or remove one sync without affecting the others.
Remove sync
This will stop syncing and remove all documents. Are you sure?
- 1Pause stops a sync without touching its files. It becomes a play button, Resume, while the sync is paused.
- 2A row in Error cannot be resumed. Click Re-sync to try again.
- 3Remove deletes the sync and every document it brought in, once you confirm.
- Pause stops scheduled re-syncs and greys out the Re-sync and Automatic Re-sync buttons on that row. The files stay in Train, and Centrus carries on answering from them. Click Resume to make the sync Active again.
- Error means the last sync failed, for example because the folder was deleted or you lost access to it in Drive. Resume is greyed out on these rows. Put things right in Drive, then click Re-sync, and the row returns to Active once the sync succeeds.
- Remove, the red bin, asks you to confirm. Yes, remove deletes every document the sync added to Train, along with their tags, and takes the row off the list. Nothing is deleted from Google Drive. If you sync the same folder again later, its files come back without tags.
What syncs and what does not
A sync brings in the same file types you can upload, plus Google Docs and Google Sheets, which are converted on the way in.
Google Docs
.docx
Saved as Word documents
Google Sheets
.xlsx
Saved as Excel workbooks
PDF and Word
.pdf.docx
Text, headings and tables
Spreadsheets
.xlsx.xls.csv
Each sheet becomes a table
Text and web pages
.txt.md.html
Read as written
Audio
.mp3.wav
Transcribed, then read
- Google Docs are saved in Train as Word files and Google Sheets as Excel workbooks, with .docx or .xlsx added to the name, so Site induction notes becomes Site induction notes.docx. Each sheet in a workbook is read as a table.
- Google Slides, Forms, Drawings and other Google formats are not synced, and neither are PowerPoint files, images or older Word files saved as .doc. They are greyed out in the list and marked Unsupported.
- Video files can be ticked, but they are skipped when the sync runs.
- The file name in Drive must end in a lower-case extension, such as .pdf. A file called Survey.PDF, or one with no extension in its name, is skipped. Google Docs and Sheets are not affected, because the extension is added for them.
- Files in the Drive bin are never synced.
A skipped file does not stop the rest of a folder from syncing, and the sync still reports success. If a file you expected is missing from Train, check its type and name first.
Disconnect
Click Disconnect at the foot of the Google Drive card. It takes effect straight away, with no confirmation step, and a message reads Integration disconnected. The card goes back to Available.
Import and sync documents from your Google Drive.
Browse folders and select any folder or individual file to sync to Centrus.
Import and sync your Google Drive documents to use with Centrus.
Connect with Centrus to access your files securely.
- Import documents from Google Drive
- Sync entire folders or select individual files
- Smart incremental sync preserves your tags
- Keep your knowledge base up to date
- 1Disconnect removes your Google sign-in from Centrus.
- 2The card reads Available again, and the Active Syncs list is hidden.
Disconnecting removes your Google sign-in from Centrus and nothing else. Files you have already synced stay in Train with their tags, and Centrus keeps answering from them, but they no longer update because Centrus can no longer reach your Drive. Your syncs are kept too. Connect again with the same Google account and they carry on where they left off, schedules included.
To take the files out of Train, remove each sync from Active Syncs before you disconnect. Once you have disconnected, the Active Syncs list is hidden, and the only ways to remove the files are to delete them one by one on the Files tab or to connect again.
Storage
Synced files count towards your organisation's storage limit in the same way as uploads: once at their size in Train, plus once more for each extra tag. Google Docs and Sheets count at the size of the Word or Excel file they are saved as. The Small Team plan includes 1 GB and the Large Team plan includes 10 GB.
The Sources bar at the foot of the Integrations tab shows how much is used, and it turns red at 90 per cent. If storage runs out partway through a folder sync, the files that do not fit are skipped without a warning and the sync still reports success, so check the bar before you sync a large folder. To make room, remove syncs you no longer need or delete files on the Files tab. For more space, see Add-ons.
