WebDAV and Google Drive: does it work?

Short answer first: Google Drive does not natively support WebDAV.

If you’ve gone hunting for a Google Drive WebDAV server address and come up empty, that’s why – Google never built one.

Here’s what this guide covers:

• What WebDAV actually is and why people want it
• Whether you can connect Google Drive via WebDAV (and how)
• The privacy trade-offs of using a third-party bridge
• A privacy-friendly alternative with WebDAV access built in

Let’s get into it.

What is WebDAV?

WebDAV (Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning) is an HTTP extension that lets you read, write, and manage files on a remote server as if they were local folders.

In plain English, the WebDAV protocol turns a cloud account into something that looks and feels like a folder on your computer.

People use WebDAV to mount a drive as a network folder, edit files across devices, or back up data without download-then-upload cycles.

Services with native WebDAV support today include Nextcloud, ownCloud and Mailfence Documents. Box used to be on that list, but officially ended WebDAV support on April 28, 2023.

Does Google Drive support WebDAV?

No, Google Drive does not support WebDAV.

Instead of adopting the open WebDAV standard, Google built its own proprietary API (the Google Drive API) for third-party apps that want to talk to Drive.

Google does not currently offer WebDAV support, and there’s no public roadmap suggesting that’s about to change.

So anything you see online labelled “Google Drive WebDAV” is a third-party workaround, not an official Google feature.

If WebDAV-style access matters to you, your two options are bolting on a bridge tool or moving to a service that supports the protocol directly. There’s no middle path.

Why doesn’t Google Drive use WebDAV?

There are two real reasons. Google Docs, Sheets and Slides aren’t files in the traditional sense; they’re cloud-hosted documents that don’t fit neatly into WebDAV’s folder-and-file world. On top of that, Google’s own API hands the company tighter grip over features, permissions and how Drive ties into the wider Google ecosystem. WebDAV would mean giving some of that up.

That’s good for Google’s product control but bad for anyone who wants WebDAV-style access without jumping through hoops.

How do you connect Google Drive to WebDAV?

If you still want WebDAV-style access to Drive, you’ll need a bridge tool that sits between you and Google.

Here’s the basic process:

1. Pick a bridge tool – examples include DAV-pocket, MultCloud, CloudMounter, or the open-source gdrive-webdav project.
2. Authorise the tool to access your Google account via OAuth.
3. Grab the WebDAV URL, username, and password the bridge gives you.
4. Add the WebDAV connection in your file manager, backup app, or device.
5. Mount Drive as a network folder and start working with it.

Every method to connect Google Drive via WebDAV runs through a third-party bridge, not Google itself.

Some bridges are free and hosted (DAV-pocket, MultCloud), others are paid desktop apps (CloudMounter), and a few are open-source tools you self-host. Each option trades off cost, convenience, and how much trust you’re handing over.

Is using a Google Drive WebDAV bridge safe?

The honest answer is “it depends on the bridge”, but the underlying model is the bigger concern. Every bridge needs OAuth access to your Google account, which is shorthand for “this third party can read your files, write to them and, in most cases, delete them on your behalf.”

And OAuth is no longer a low-risk integration. The Verizon 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report found that third-party involvement in breaches doubled year-on-year to 30% of all breaches, and malicious OAuth applications rose 31% over the same period as attackers learned to exploit consent flows directly. This isn’t theoretical: in August 2025, stolen OAuth tokens from a single chatbot integration (Salesloft Drift) exposed customer data across more than 700 organizations, including Google, Workday and TransUnion.

Third-party bridges may also collect metadata or account activity depending on their policies, so it’s worth reading what each service logs before you connect anything.

Open-source bridges like gdrive-webdav let you self-host the connection, which cuts out the middleman but adds setup work and some technical know-how.

Every WebDAV bridge for Google Drive sits between you and Google, with access to everything in your Drive.

For non-sensitive files, that’s probably fine. For private documents, contracts, or anything regulated, it’s a real consideration.

What are the privacy-friendly alternatives?

If WebDAV access is what you actually need, the simpler answer is to pick a service that supports it directly.

Mailfence Documents includes strong, native WebDAV access. You can mount Mailfence Documents straight from your file manager using https://mailfence.com/docs/your-username. No bridges, no middlemen.

Other native-WebDAV options worth a look: Nextcloud and ownCloud, both open-source projects based in Germany.

Here’s how they stack up:

Service	Native WebDAV	Privacy focus	Based in
Mailfence Documents	Yes, via WebDAV access	Strong	Belgium
Nextcloud	Yes	Strong	Germany
ownCloud	Yes	Strong	Germany
Google Drive	No	Low	United States
Dropbox	No	Low	United States
Box	No (ended April 2023)	Medium	United States

Jurisdiction matters here as well as the protocol. Under the US CLOUD Act, US-based providers can be compelled to hand over data stored anywhere in the world – including data held in European data centres – which puts them in direct tension with GDPR. EU-based services like Mailfence (Belgium), Nextcloud and ownCloud (Germany) don’t sit under that obligation.

If WebDAV access matters to you, picking a service that supports it directly beats bolting a bridge onto one that doesn’t.

Conclusion

Google Drive doesn’t speak WebDAV, third-party bridges add trust and privacy risk, and native WebDAV services skip the problem entirely.

For anyone who cares about who has access to their files and emails, picking a privacy-first provider beats patching one onto a service that wasn’t built that way.

What you get with Mailfence:

• Mailfence Documents with native WebDAV access, no bridge, no OAuth middleman
• End-to-end encrypted email, hosted in Belgium under GDPR
• Calendar, contacts, and groups under one private account

If you liked this article, consider subscribing to our monthly newsletter for more privacy-related news and content.