NOTE: At this time I don't know how to make Time Machine to backup the Google Drive for Desktop cache. The safest way to proceed while working offline is to save the file to a local folder then when going online again move the file to the Google Drive folder. So, in summary, after creating a file inside the Google Drive folder, for how long and how much can Google drive stores the files locally before uploading then with and without internet connection?Īs it was mentioned on a couple of comments to the question, saving a file to a Google Drive folder while being offline is risky because Time Machine doesn't backup the Google Drive for Desktop cache by default. However, I'm unaware on whether some of these files were corrupted or, even, whether all the written files were uploaded. At least, I see some files similar to the ones when Time Machine output was being uploaded. Usually, when the internet disconnects and reconnects again (even after several hours), Google Drive seems to indicate that the progress could be resumed. In those cases, what happens to whatever is being written inside the disk image? Or, maybe worse, due to power outages, my computer might eventually turn off. Occasionally, however, either my computer sleeps or due to other reasons my internet disconnects. Now, usually Time Machine finishes the backup way before Google Drive completes syncing all the files. More precisely, I've created a sparse bundle disk image, attached such image and mounted it in order to make it visible to Time Machine. I've been using Google Drive to backup via Time Machine on a macOS 10.13.6.