The question Google couldn’t answer
My Google Drive storage kept running out, and I wanted to know why. More importantly, which files and folders were actually taking up all that space? And could there be duplicate files hiding somewhere?
Google’s built-in Storage Manager is helpful, but it didn’t quite answer those questions.
The tools I didn’t want to trust
So I looked at third-party tools, free and paid, for managing Drive space. But I couldn’t shake a gut feeling about trusting a third-party, often cloud-based, app with access to my private files. The Data Safety section of one app on Google Play didn’t help:
This app may share these data types with third parties: personal info, app info and performance.
This app may collect these data types: app info and performance, device or other IDs.
So I decided to write the code myself. Not a fully loaded app with a rich UI, just simple, efficient scripts that reveal what matters while I stay in control of what happens with my data.
A Google Colab notebook
Google Colab came in handy. There was no Python environment to set up and no libraries to install, so I could focus on the script itself, with Gemini helping me find the right Drive API snippets.
The notebook did two things:
- Found duplicate files in my Google Drive.
- Showed how storage was spread across my folder hierarchy.
The results turned out to be really useful, so I shared the notebook on LinkedIn for anyone to use or adapt.
“Feel free to use the notebook as-is or modify it to fit your needs. Just a heads-up: this is basic Python scripting, nothing fancy, so you’ll need a bit of a developer mindset to make the most of it.” From the original LinkedIn post
The original Colab notebook
It’s still there and still free. Find duplicates and see your folder sizes with a few lines of Python, if you’re happy to run code yourself.
From script to app
Most people don’t want to run Python to understand their storage. So the notebook grew into DriveNest, an Android app built around the same two questions: where did my space go, and what can I safely remove?
- The Colab notebook, shared on LinkedIn: duplicates and folder sizes for Google Drive.
- DriveNest on Google Play: the duplicate finder and the sunburst chart are the notebook’s direct descendants, joined by the security audit, cleanup and trends.
- DriveNest v2: Microsoft OneDrive alongside Google Drive.
- DriveNest 2.1: an optional AI assistant that explains where your storage went.
The same worry, answered
DriveNest is itself a third-party app with access to your cloud, which is exactly what made me uneasy. So it was built to give good answers to the questions I was asking of other apps:
What can it see?
Only metadata: names, sizes, dates, folder structure and sharing settings. On Google Drive it asks for read-only metadata access (drive.metadata.readonly), so it can’t open, change or delete your files. It never reads file contents on either cloud.
Where does my data go?
Scans are stored on your device, in the app’s private storage. DriveNest has no backend server, and saved scans are never uploaded automatically.
Who else gets it?
No one. The app has no third-party analytics, advertising, crash-reporting or tracking SDKs, and your data is never sold or shared.
Does it act behind my back?
No. It suggests cleanups and you review every one. On Google Drive, changes run as scripts in your own account; on OneDrive, write access is only requested when you first ask for an action.
And the AI assistant?
It’s optional and off by default, and it uses your own API key. The scan metadata it examines goes straight from your phone to the provider you choose, never file contents, sign-in tokens or your email address.
That’s the notebook’s promise, “I stay in control of my data”, carried into an app. The details are in the Privacy Policy and the FAQ.
The notebook is for developers. DriveNest is for everyone else.
— Falcon Drive Labs