The short answer
There is no Google Drive WebDAV URL. Not a hidden one, not a beta one, not one behind a Workspace admin toggle. We checked Google's own documentation in September 2026: the two interfaces Google publishes for reaching Drive from outside a browser are the Drive REST API and the Drive for desktop application. The API overview page names the REST API, the Picker API, Apps Script, the Activity API and the Labels API. The word WebDAV does not appear on it.
| Route | Google's own wording | Speaks WebDAV |
|---|---|---|
| Drive REST API | The REST API that lets you use Drive storage from within your app | No |
| Drive for desktop | Stream or mirror files, Windows and macOS only | No |
| Drive on the web | For Linux: the desktop version isn't available | No |
| A WebDAV endpoint | Not documented anywhere | Does not exist |
Why people want a WebDAV URL for Drive in the first place
Nobody searches for a protocol out of curiosity. Three situations produce this query.
- A NAS backup job. Synology and QNAP both ship a WebDAV client, and a WebDAV target is the generic way to point a backup task at some remote storage. Pointing it at Drive looks like it should be one URL away.
- An application that only speaks WebDAV. Document management systems, older CAD and accounting packages, scanner firmware: plenty of software offers exactly one remote-storage field and it wants a WebDAV address.
- Linux. Google's system requirements page is blunt — for Linux, "the desktop version isn't available. Instead, you can use Google Drive on the web." WebDAV would be the obvious escape hatch, because every Linux file manager already has a client for it.
Each has a real answer. None of the answers is a WebDAV URL from Google.
Option 1: Drive for desktop, stream or mirror
This is Google's supported client, and the mode it asks you to pick is worth understanding first.
Google's help centre defines both precisely. With stream, "files are primarily stored in the cloud, but will be made available offline when accessed", and "files are located on a virtual Drive on your computer". With mirror, "mirrored files will always be stored on your computer and in the cloud", and "files are located in a folder on your computer". Streaming costs almost no disk; mirroring costs the full size of whatever you mirror and buys real offline access.
The documented requirements, checked in September 2026, are Windows 10 and up or Windows Server 2016 and up on 64-bit, Windows 11 and up on ARM64, and macOS Ventura 13.0 or higher. On Windows it "requires Microsoft WebView2, which is usually included in Windows 11 and most Windows 10 devices". There is no Linux build.
What it costs you: no Linux, one mount root per account, and no WebDAV URL to hand to the NAS or the application that asked for one.
Option 2: rclone serve webdav in front of a Drive remote
This is the honest answer for "I need a WebDAV URL that reaches my Drive". You run the WebDAV server yourself, and rclone translates between WebDAV and Google's API.
bash
rclone config
rclone serve webdav gdrive: --addr 127.0.0.1:8080 --user alice --pass secretThree facts from rclone's own documentation, all checked in September 2026. First, the default --addr is 127.0.0.1:8080, so the endpoint starts out reachable only from the same machine; change --addr to expose it and you own the TLS problem. Second, authentication is --user with --pass for a single account, --htpasswd for a file in Apache format, or --user-from-header behind a reverse proxy. Third, and most important for Drive: the Drive backend page states that "the shared client_id is being retired and will stop working during 2026" and that "creating your own is now strongly recommended". Set this up without your own client_id and client_secret from the Google API Console and you are building on an announced expiry.
One more number from the same page, because it explains most complaints that this setup feels slow: "Drive has quite a lot of rate limiting. This causes rclone to be limited to transferring about 2 files per second only." That is Drive's API, not rclone and not WebDAV, and no client removes it.
What it costs you: a process that has to stay running, a config file, your own OAuth credentials, TLS if it leaves the machine, and Drive's rate limits unchanged. It does avoid FUSE — rclone serve webdav installs no driver, unlike rclone mount; the rclone mount alternative page covers that trade.
Option 3: a Nextcloud or ownCloud bridge, which is not documented
The other suggested route is a self-hosted WebDAV server in front of Drive: add Drive as external storage in Nextcloud, point your WebDAV client at Nextcloud. Checked in September 2026, Nextcloud's administration manual lists its external-storage backends as Amazon S3, FTP/FTPS, Local, Nextcloud, OpenStack Object Storage, SFTP, SMB/CIFS and WebDAV. Google Drive is not among them. Users report older releases having a Google Drive backend; it is not in the current documentation, so we will not tell you to build on it. If Nextcloud is the WebDAV server you care about, why Nextcloud WebDAV is slow is the more useful page.
Option 4: skip WebDAV between you and Google entirely
Ask what the WebDAV URL was for. If the goal was Drive files visible in Finder or File Explorer, WebDAV is only the last hop — and it does not have to be the hop that talks to Google.
That is the shape AnyStorage uses. Google Drive is one connection type, reached through Drive's own OAuth sign-in inside the app, so nothing pretends Drive speaks WebDAV. If you then want a mounted volume, the app runs a WebDAV server on your own machine: sidebar, Services, WebDAV tab, Start, default address http://127.0.0.1:3211, HTTP Basic authentication always on with username anystorage and a 24-character password generated on first use. Every connection open in the app appears as a folder at that root, so Drive sits beside an S3 bucket and an SFTP host in one mount instead of one mount each. No macFUSE, no WinFsp, no admin password.
Placed honestly: this is a 0.2.x application, young by the standards of the field. The free tier allows two connections and serves that mount read-only — browse, open, stream and copy out, but writing back needs Pro — and permits commercial use. It runs on macOS 11+, Windows 10+ and Ubuntu 20.04+, which matters if Google's use-the-web answer for Linux sent you here. Step by step: mount Google Drive as a network drive. The wider case: mount cloud storage as a local drive.
What each option actually costs
| Route | Gives you a WebDAV URL | Linux | Running process | Main catch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drive for desktop | No | No | Google's client | One mount per account |
rclone serve webdav | Yes | Yes | rclone, always on | Own OAuth client needed from 2026 |
| Nextcloud bridge | Yes | Yes | Nextcloud stack | Drive backend not documented |
| Client with a local WebDAV server | Yes, to loopback | Yes | The app | Free mount is read-only |
The last column decides it. An appliance that must reach Drive needs a WebDAV server that stays up without you: rclone serve webdav on an always-on machine, with your own Google credentials. If you wanted Drive files in your own file manager, a client with a loopback endpoint is less machinery for the same result.
Is there a Google Drive WebDAV URL I can paste into Finder?
No. Checked in September 2026, Google publishes no WebDAV endpoint for Drive on any of its documentation properties, and the Drive API overview does not mention the protocol at all. Anything that looks like a Drive WebDAV address belongs to a third-party bridge, not to Google.
Did Google Drive ever support WebDAV?
Not in any documentation we can find. Google's current docs describe the REST API and Drive for desktop and nothing else, and there is no vendor page announcing or retiring a WebDAV service. Treat forum posts claiming an old endpoint as unverified.
Can my Synology or QNAP back up to Google Drive without WebDAV?
Yes, and this is the better route. Synology's Cloud Sync package exists to "sync and share files among your Synology NAS and multiple public cloud services", and its help text uses Google Drive as an example. That is a vendor-supported connection to Drive's API, strictly better than a WebDAV shim. For WebDAV in the other direction — the NAS serving your desktop — see NAS WebDAV setup.
Does rclone serve webdav need to be exposed to the internet?
Only if the client is not on the same machine. The documented default --addr is 127.0.0.1:8080, which is loopback-only. Exposing it means choosing a public address, adding TLS yourself, and picking one of the documented auth options — --user with --pass, --htpasswd, or --user-from-header behind a proxy.
Why is Drive slow through any of these, not just WebDAV?
Because the bottleneck is Drive's API. rclone's Drive documentation states outright that "Drive has quite a lot of rate limiting" and that this limits it to "about 2 files per second only" on file-by-file work. A different protocol in front of the same API does not raise that ceiling; fewer, larger files do.
Next steps
The protocol hub, if a client is what you were really after: choosing a WebDAV client, and a free WebDAV client for Windows 11 for what Microsoft's November 2023 deprecation changed on that platform.