Zoho WorkDrive to Google Drive: Moving Team Folders into Google Workspace (2026)

Transfer files from Zoho WorkDrive to Google Drive three ways — manual export, rclone, and a server-side copy that moves Team Folder content into Google Drive or a Shared Drive without a local download.

Introduction

Teams move files from Zoho WorkDrive to Google Drive when the organisation standardises on Google Workspace — Docs, Sheets, Meet and Gmail are where the day's work already happens, and a second file platform is one login too many. The two services are shaped differently. WorkDrive pools storage per team (1 TB, 3 TB or 5 TB for 3–10 users on the Starter, Team and Business plans) and stores native Zoho Writer, Sheet and Show documents that only become .docx, .xlsx and .pptx on export. Google Drive gives 15 GB free per account, 2 TB for $99.99 a year on Google One, pooled storage on Workspace plans — and enforces one limit every migration has to respect: each user can upload at most 750 GB to Drive within 24 hours, whatever tool does the uploading. This guide covers the manual export route, an rclone copy, and a server-side transfer with CloudsLinker that skips the download/re-upload cycle and can be restarted after that daily cap resets without repeating completed files.

Zoho WorkDrive and Google Drive at a Glance
Why Teams Move from WorkDrive to Google Drive
Preparation Checklist
Method 1: Manual Export and Upload
Method 2: rclone (Zoho and Drive Backends)
Method 3: Server-Side Copy with CloudsLinker
Quick Comparison
Practical Tips
Frequently Asked Questions

What is Zoho WorkDrive?

Zoho WorkDrive is the file platform of the Zoho suite, built around shared Team Folders rather than personal drives. Storage is pooled: a team of 3–10 users shares 1 TB, 3 TB or 5 TB depending on plan, and documents created inside it are native Zoho Writer, Sheet and Show files.

Team Folders with role-based access as the core unit
Per-file upload caps by plan: 10 GB / 50 GB / 250 GB
Native Zoho documents export as .docx / .xlsx / .pptx
TrueSync desktop client; data-centre regions worldwide

What is Google Drive?

Google Drive is the storage layer of Google Workspace: files open in Docs, Sheets and Slides in place, surface in Gmail and Meet, and live either in a personal My Drive or in a Shared Drive owned by the organisation.

15 GB free; Google One 2 TB at $99.99/year; Workspace plans pool storage
Single files up to 5 TB
750 GB upload cap per user per 24 hours
Shared Drives for team-owned content

Comparison: Zoho WorkDrive vs Google Drive

Feature	Zoho WorkDrive	Google Drive
Storage model	Pooled per team (1 / 3 / 5 TB for 3–10 users)	Per account (15 GB free, 2 TB Google One) or pooled on Workspace
Team content	Team Folders	Shared Drives
Native documents	Zoho Writer / Sheet / Show	Google Docs / Sheets / Slides
Max single file	10 GB / 50 GB / 250 GB by plan	5 TB
Daily upload limit	Not published	750 GB per user per 24 hours
Suite integration	Zoho Workplace, CRM, Projects	Gmail, Meet, Calendar, Workspace admin

Why Teams Move from WorkDrive to Google Drive

Workspace standardisation: once Gmail, Meet and Docs are the daily tools, keeping files in a separate Zoho tenant means two logins, two sharing models and two admin consoles.
Collaboration in native formats: Zoho documents become static Office files on the way out; teams that want live co-editing move them into Docs and Sheets once and stop converting.
Consolidating after a merger or a Zoho Workplace cancellation: the pooled Team Folders have to land somewhere before the plan lapses.
Storage economics at scale: Workspace pooled storage grows with seats; a 2 TB Google One plan covers a small team's pool for $99.99 a year.

Preparing to Transfer from Zoho WorkDrive to Google Drive

Inventory the Team Folders and their sizes from the WorkDrive admin console — the pooled total decides whether a personal Drive, Google One or Workspace storage is the target.
Decide the destination shape: personal My Drive for one user's files, a Shared Drive per Team Folder for organisation-owned content.
Plan for the 750 GB/day cap: divide the total by 750 GB to get the minimum number of days; schedule the migration accordingly rather than expecting a single overnight run.
Note your Zoho region (Global, EU, India, Japan, Australia, Canada) — both rclone and CloudsLinker ask for it during authorization.
Freeze WorkDrive edits once the copy starts: set Team Folders read-only or announce a change freeze so nothing drifts underneath the transfer.

Method 1: Manual Export from WorkDrive and Upload to Google Drive

Step 1: Download from Zoho WorkDrive

In the WorkDrive web app, open My Folders or a Team Folder, select the items and choose Download. Multiple selections arrive as a zip; native Zoho documents are exported to Office formats inside it. Alternatively, let the TrueSync desktop client mirror the folders locally and copy from the synced directory.

Zoho WorkDrive My Folders view with four files selected via checkboxes and the selection toolbar showing Copy link and Download options, with My Folders and Team Folders sections visible in the left sidebar

Step 2: Extract and Upload to Google Drive

Extract the zip, open Google Drive in the browser and drag the folders into My Drive or the target Shared Drive. Drive keeps the folder structure. If you want Office files to become editable Google Docs, enable Convert uploads in Drive settings before dragging. The whole batch comes down your connection and goes back up it, and the 750 GB daily cap applies to what you upload.

Method 2: rclone with the Zoho and Google Drive Backends

For admins who prefer a terminal

rclone has native backends for both services. Be clear about what it does: a copy between a Zoho remote and a Drive remote streams every file through the machine running rclone. Two backend details matter here — the Zoho backend supports neither modification times nor hashes (so syncs compare by size) and paces itself to Zoho's API rate limits, which makes large trees slow.

Step 1: Configure Both Remotes

Run rclone config twice. For the zoho remote, rclone opens a browser for Zoho's OAuth sign-in, asks for your region and then for the Team and Workspace to use. For the drive remote, it does the same with Google's consent page.

Rclone official downloads page listing installer packages for Windows, macOS and Linux, the starting point for configuring the Zoho WorkDrive and Google Drive remotes

Step 2: Run the Copy and Verify

rclone copy zoho:"Team Folders/Marketing" gdrive:"Migration/Marketing" --progress

Afterwards, rclone check --size-only compares the two trees. Expect the job to pause if Google's 750 GB daily cap is hit; rerunning the same command skips files already present.

Method 3: Server-Side Copy with CloudsLinker

Team Folders to Google Drive without the double transfer

CloudsLinker authorizes both WorkDrive and Google Drive through OAuth and copies files between the two clouds on its own servers. Nothing routes through your computer, the folder tree is preserved, and a task interrupted by Google's daily cap can be restarted without repeating the files already copied.

Step 1: Connect Zoho WorkDrive

Click Add Cloud, choose Zoho WorkDrive, name the connection and pick your data-centre region. Sign in on Zoho's OAuth page, approve access, then select the Team and optionally a Workspace. That selection is what makes Team Folders visible as a source.

CloudsLinker Connect Your Zoho WorkDrive dialog with region options (United States/Global, Europe, India, Japan, Australia, Canada) and the Add Now button before Zoho OAuth authorization

Step 2: Connect Google Drive

Click Add Cloud again and choose Google Drive — or Google Shared Drive if the destination is organisation-owned. Approve Google's consent screen; no password is stored and access can be revoked from your Google account's third-party access page at any time.

Connect Google Drive in CloudsLinker before Google OAuth authorization

Step 3: Configure the Transfer

In the Transfer section, pick the WorkDrive connection as the source and browse to the Team Folders or My Folders to move; pick the Google Drive folder or Shared Drive as the target. Filters by file type, size or date let you leave out exports and temp files. Use Copy mode so WorkDrive stays intact until you have verified the result.

CloudsLinker transfer setup with the Zoho WorkDrive connection selected as source and Google Drive as target in copy mode

Step 4: Start and Monitor the Transfer

Start the task and follow it in the Task List. Failed files are listed per task and retried; if Google's 750 GB daily cap is reached, restart the task once it resets and only the remaining files are copied. One task per Team Folder keeps retries and reconciliation fine-grained.

Quick Comparison

Method	Uses Your Bandwidth	Handles the 750 GB/day Cap	Best For	Skill Level
Manual export + upload	Yes — twice	Manually, batch by batch	One user's files, a few GB	Beginner
rclone	Yes — on the machine running it	Rerun the command each day	Admins with a terminal and a fast box	Advanced
CloudsLinker	No — server-side	Restart; completed files skipped	Team Folders in the hundreds of GB to TB range	Beginner

Practical Tips for Zoho WorkDrive to Google Drive

Map Team Folders to Shared Drives, not to one person's My Drive: files in a personal Drive leave with that employee; a Shared Drive belongs to the organisation.
Decide on document conversion once: keep .docx/.xlsx as-is if other tools still need Office files; convert to Google formats if the team will co-edit in Docs and Sheets from now on.
Budget days, not hours: 750 GB per user per day is the ceiling for any method. A 3 TB pool needs four days minimum; running several tasks under different Google users does not change the per-user cap.
Reconcile per folder: compare file counts between each WorkDrive Team Folder and its Google Drive counterpart before moving to the next one.
Recreate sharing after, not during: set up Shared Drive members and folder permissions once the files are in place, so people are not editing a tree that is still filling up.
Revoke access when finished: remove CloudsLinker from Zoho's connected apps and from your Google account's third-party access once the migration is verified.

Frequently Asked Questions

Zoho-native documents exist in WorkDrive in Zoho's own formats. When they leave WorkDrive — by download or by server-side copy — they are exported as .docx, .xlsx and .pptx. Once in Google Drive they open in Docs, Sheets and Slides in compatibility mode, or you can convert them to native Google formats (Drive settings → Convert uploads). Complex Zoho Sheet formulas and Show animations may not survive either conversion, so spot-check important files.

Both. When CloudsLinker connects to WorkDrive it asks you to pick the Team and optionally a Workspace after OAuth, which exposes Team Folder content as well as My Folders. On the Google side, a Shared Drive is the natural home for Team Folders — CloudsLinker lists Google Shared Drive as its own connector, so add that instead of a personal Google Drive when the destination belongs to the organisation.

No. Files and the folder tree transfer; share links, member roles, comments and file activity do not, because the two permission systems are unrelated. Plan to recreate sharing on the Google side — Shared Drive membership for teams, per-folder sharing for individuals — after the files land.

WorkDrive caps single files by plan: 10 GB on Starter, 50 GB on Team, 250 GB on Business. Google Drive accepts single files up to 5 TB, so nothing that fits in WorkDrive is too large for Drive. The limit that actually bites is Google's daily cap: each user can upload or copy at most 750 GB to Drive within 24 hours. That applies to every client, CloudsLinker included — a 3 TB team pool is a four-day job at minimum, which is why a transfer that can be restarted without repeating finished files matters.

Through Zoho's OAuth flow. You pick the region your Zoho account lives in (Global, Europe, India, Japan, Australia or Canada), sign in on Zoho's own page and approve access; CloudsLinker never sees your password. After authorization you choose the Team and optionally a Workspace to expose. Access can be revoked at any time from Zoho's connected-apps settings.

Check before starting. A WorkDrive Business team can pool 5 TB or more. A free Google account holds 15 GB; Google One gives 2 TB for $99.99 a year (a 2026 promotion prices the first year at $49.99); Google Workspace business plans pool storage across the organisation, which is the sensible target for a team migration. If the destination fills mid-transfer, CloudsLinker logs the remaining files as failed and skips completed ones when you restart after adding space.

Yes, and for large teams it is the better plan. Create one CloudsLinker task per Team Folder or department, run them in sequence, and reconcile file counts after each. Keep WorkDrive read-only during the move so nothing changes underneath the copy, and retire the WorkDrive plan only once every folder has been verified in Google Drive.

Conclusion

Match the method to the volume. One person's My Folders with a few gigabytes fits the manual export-and-upload route, zip quirks aside. An admin comfortable in a terminal can script the move with rclone, accepting that every byte flows through the machine running it and that Zoho's API pacing makes it a slow job. For Team Folders measured in hundreds of gigabytes — the pooled 1–5 TB that WorkDrive plans accumulate — the server-side copy with [CloudsLinker](https://www.cloudslinker.com) is the practical route: OAuth on both sides, folder tree preserved, nothing routed through a local connection, and a task that can be restarted after Google's 750 GB daily cap resets without repeating completed files. Keep WorkDrive read-only until the file counts in Google Drive match. Heading to Microsoft instead? See [Zoho WorkDrive to OneDrive](/guides/transfer-files-from-zoho-workdrive-to-onedrive/). For other destinations, start from the [Zoho WorkDrive migration hub](/guides/migrate-files-from-zoho-workdrive-to-another-clouds/), and for connector details see the [Zoho WorkDrive](/support-clouds/zoho/) and [Google Drive](/support-clouds/google-drive/) support pages.

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