GmailFS

Gmailfs is a virtual file system which has been developed by Richard Jones. It allows users to mount their e- mail account with Gmail as the storage and use as a local hard drive. Gmailfs was originally developed for Linux, but there are also versions for Windows, such as the GMail Drive shell extension. Gmailfs should not be confused with the model developed by Google File System. Since January 2007, the program offers " gDisk " similar functionality under Mac OS X, due to system changes by Google, it is no longer compatible, however.

Gmailfs builds a file system using FUSE (which allows to be controlled file systems from the user and not by the kernel ). Communication with Gmail is a Python library named libgmail instead. Gmailfs itself is also written in Python.

The use of gmailfs provides users with more than 7 GB of additional memory, the precise value depends on the space that Gmail currently provides. The memory can be accessed from any computer with an Internet. The speed of access to the file system depends on the speed of the user's Internet access and the Google server. About MacFUSE gmailfs is also available for the Apple operating system.

Breach of Terms of Use

The use of gmailfs for violating Google's terms of use. They prohibit, (paragraph 4) " access services in an automated manner, for example, with robots or scripts " on. It also states in violation of the Terms of Use " Google can put your individual use of the Services or these limits prohibit temporarily or permanently ." As a possible consequence " can therefore, the information is deleted from your account, data and other content stored there ."

Setting of the development

Since the development of the required gmailfs library was set libgmail, author of gmailfs has announced not to develop gmailfs on.