Syncing a Google Drive folder

Folder sync watches one Google Drive folder for you. Share it with a sync email that SmartLedger creates for your company, and every new PDF or photo added to it is sent to SmartUploads. There's no Google sign-in, so it suits a shared bills folder that your team or client keeps adding to.

Before you start

• Google Drive is included on the Plus plan and above. On a lower plan, the Google Drive tile shows a PLUS badge.
• You need to be able to share the Drive folder, as its owner or an editor.

Set up folder sync

1. Open Smart Integrations from the sidebar.

2. Click New Integration and choose Google Drive. If Google Drive is already in your list, click its row instead.

3. Under Folder sync, click Set up folder sync.

4. Enter an Integration name your team will recognise, such as "Client invoice intake", and click Continue.

   SmartLedger creates a sync email for this company and shows it under Sync account.

5. Copy the sync email.

6. In Google Drive, right-click the folder, choose Share, paste the sync email, set it to Viewer and send.

7. Copy the folder's link, paste it into Google Drive folder link or folder ID, and click Verify folder.

   If you see "We cannot see this folder yet", the folder isn't shared with the sync email yet. If you copied a file's link by mistake, copy the folder's link instead.

8. Click Enable auto-sync.

   SmartLedger scans the folder once to note what is already there. You can leave the page while it runs.

What gets synced

• Only files added after you enable auto-sync are imported. Files already in the folder are listed as Existing — not imported.
• Supported files are PDF, JPG, PNG, WEBP and HEIC, up to 25 MB each. Google Docs and Sheets, other file types and bigger files are skipped, with the reason shown.
• Subfolders are included. Each folder inside the shared folder is listed on its own, new ones are picked up automatically, and files placed straight in the shared folder are grouped separately.
• SmartLedger checks the folder about every two minutes.
• Each new file becomes a SmartUploads document, shown as Sent to Smart Uploads, and waits for your review like any other upload.
• Deleting a file in Drive never deletes anything in SmartLedger. The file is just marked Removed in Drive.

Keep an eye on it

The folder sync page has three tabs:

• Overview — totals for Registered, Queued, Failed and Skipped files, a Folder activity table for each subfolder, and Recent failures. Click Ignore on a folder to skip new files in it, or Reactivate to process them again.
• Files — every file detected, with its status. Filter by status or folder, and click Open to see the file in SmartUploads.
• Settings — Pause auto-sync or Resume auto-sync, Change folder, and Delete to remove the integration and its sync history.

Tips

• Pausing loses nothing. Changes made while paused are picked up when you resume.
• Change folder resets the scan and turns auto-sync off. Share the new folder with the same sync email, verify it, then enable auto-sync again.
• If the folder is unshared, you'll see "Shared folder access was lost". Click Re-share folder, share it again as Viewer and verify it.
• A file is tried three times before it shows as Failed. Hover over the status to see why.

Related articles

• Uploading files from Google Drive
• Reviewing, approving and rejecting uploads