---
title: Google Drive
summary: Connect a Google Drive account so your AI agents can find, read, organize, and share files and folders under permissions you control.
category: integrations
slug: googledrive
---

## What Google Drive in Kronos lets your agents do

Once a Google Drive account is connected to Kronos, your agents can —
within the permissions you grant — work with your files and folders the
way you would in Drive:

**Read actions** (available when an agent has "Read only" or higher):

- Search for files and folders by name, type, owner, or date.
- Open a file's details (name, type, size, owner, folder location,
  sharing status).
- Download a file, or export a Google Doc/Sheet/Slide to another format
  (PDF, Word, etc.).
- List the contents of a folder or a shared drive.
- List your shared drives and open a specific shared drive.
- Read comments on a file and the replies to them.
- See who a file is shared with and the access level of each person.
- List a file's version history and read an earlier revision.
- Read your Drive account details (the connected account and its
  storage usage).

**Write actions** (available only when an agent has "Read and write"):

- Create a new folder or a new file (including a file built from text
  you provide).
- Upload a file into Drive.
- Edit or replace an existing file's content.
- Rename a file or folder and update its details.
- Move a file to a different folder, or make a copy of it.
- Create a shortcut to a file or folder.
- Share a file or folder with someone, change their access level, or
  remove their access.
- Add, edit, or delete comments and replies on a file.
- Move a file to Trash, restore it from Trash, or empty the Trash.
- Create, rename, hide, unhide, or delete a shared drive.

You decide which agent gets which level, and you can switch any
permission off in one click without disconnecting the Google Drive
account.

## Connecting Google Drive

A step-by-step walk-through with screenshots is at `/docs/googledrive`.
The short version:

1. Open Kronos → **Connect** in the sidebar → **Applications** tab.

2. Click the **Google Drive** card to open the detail dialog, then
   click the green **Connect** button.

3. You land on Google's screen — pick the Google account you want to
   connect.

4. Confirm the chosen account on Google's summary screen.

5. Review the list of actions Kronos will be allowed to do. All boxes
   are checked by default — leave them checked unless you specifically
   want to disable a category (some actions stop working when a box is
   unchecked).

6. Scroll to the bottom of the access list and click Continue. You're
   sent back to Kronos at the Already connected tab with the new Google
   Drive entry pre-selected.

You can connect more than one Google account; each appears as its own
connection with its own email.

## Telling connections apart

The Google Drive management page shows the connected account's email
address right under the "Google Drive" title (for example,
`you@yourcompany.com`). This is how Kronos and you identify which
account this connection represents — you cannot rename the email
itself.

If you connect more than one account, each appears with its own email.
Optionally you can add a short personal note next to the email (the
"Your note for this connection" field) — labels like "Work Drive",
"Team Files", or "Personal" make a long list easier to scan. The note
is yours only; agents always identify the account by the underlying
email + ID, not by the note.

## Giving an agent access

On the Google Drive management page click **+ Add AI Agent**, pick the
agent from the dropdown, then choose:

- **Off** — the agent cannot touch this Google Drive account.
- **Read only** — the agent can search, list, read, and download files,
  but cannot create, upload, edit, move, share, or delete anything.
- **Read and write** — the agent can do all of the above plus create,
  upload, edit, move, copy, share, comment, and delete files.

The same controls are available inside the AI Agent editor — scroll to
the **Connected Apps** section.

## Fine-grained overrides

Inside the permissions modal (the gear icon next to a Google Drive
account in the agent editor or on the management page) you'll see the
full list of actions grouped by **Read tools** and **Write tools**.
Toggle individual actions on or off to override the preset.

Common combinations:

- **Research assistant**: preset Read only, no overrides. Agent finds
  and summarizes documents but changes nothing.
- **Intake agent**: preset Read only, override `Upload File` and
  `Create a folder` ON. Agent can read documents and file new uploads,
  but cannot delete or re-share existing files.
- **Organizer agent**: preset Read and write, overrides `Delete folder
  or file` and `Empty Trash` OFF. Agent can create, move, and rename
  files but cannot permanently delete them.
- **Full assistant**: preset Read and write, no overrides.

Click Save to apply. Changes take effect on the next message the agent
processes.

## Multiple Google Drive accounts on the same agent

If an agent has access to two or more Google Drive accounts (e.g. Work
+ Personal), the agent picks which account to use on every action based
on context. When the request is ambiguous ("save this to Drive"), the
agent will ask which account to use.

You can cut ambiguity by turning the agent's access to one of the
accounts off, or by giving the connections obviously distinct notes
("Work Drive" vs "Personal Drive").

## When something goes wrong

- **"Needs reconnect"** badge — Google revoked or expired the
  connection. Open `/app/connect`, click Google Drive, and walk through
  Connect again. Permissions are preserved.
- **Agent says "I can't create that file"** — that agent's permission
  preset is Off or Read only without the matching write override. Open
  the permissions modal and adjust.
- **Agent says it can't find a file** — the file may be in a shared
  drive the connected account doesn't have access to, or the name
  didn't match. Ask the agent to search by a different term, or confirm
  the file is visible to the connected account.
- **Agent says the connected app is temporarily unavailable** — Google
  or the connection had a transient hiccup. Ask the user to retry in a
  moment. If it persists, check the management page for a "Needs
  reconnect" badge.

## Privacy

Kronos does NOT store the content of your Google Drive files. Each time
an agent uses a Drive action, it fetches just-in-time through the
connection, uses what it needs to complete the task, and discards the
result. The audit log records that the action happened (which agent,
which action, when, and whether it succeeded), but not the file
contents.

When you disconnect Google Drive or cancel your Kronos subscription,
the connection and all per-agent permissions are deleted immediately.