As described and then later discussed on blogs.macos.fr, it’s possible to mount a gmail filesystem on MacOS X. A mounted gmail filesystem takes advantage of the huge capacity of gmail accounts. As advertised, a mounted gmail file system will work as any other disk. Unfortunately, MacOS X 10.5 "Leopard" introduces changes that break all instructions available on the net. Here’s how I made it work.

First, I did not use gmailfs directly as Jean-Matthieu does in his example. Go to gmailfs-app and install GMailFS and MacFUSE. Then,  install MacPython 2.5.2.

This is the easy part. The difficult part involves issuing shell commands (or using the Terminal, as Mac novices say). If you’re not very familiar with Unix shells, it’s time to learn how now. Come back when you’re an experienced novice.

First, make your Mac actually use the most recent version of Python: Just point /usr/bin/python to ‘/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/bin/python’.

Then, install pyOpenSSL and ClientCookie  (yes, download ClientCookie proper. The web page says ClientCookie is now part of mechanize, but ignore that).

Then, download libgmail. From the archive, as root copy all the *.py files to ‘/Applications/GMailFS.app/Contents/Resources/Python/’.

Anyway, that’s what I did. I still can’t mount gmail file systems from the command line. The source code is available by svn as ‘svn checkout http://gmailfs-app.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ gmailfs-app-read-only’, and my next step is to make the software have mounted file systems appear in the Finder.

But it’s still not usable, because copying large files breaks the connection. Any hints as to how to solve that are greatly appreciated.

Thank you. I’ll return to Norwegian now.

More From roffe

• IQ-testing med omsorg og varme
• Mythmaking: How introductory psychology texts present B.F. Skinner’s analysis of cognition
• Fersk fra pressen: Scandinavian Journal of Organizational Psychology 3(1)

roffe Recommends

• 10 Environmentally Phone Apps that are easy to use  (U.S. Green Technology)
• How to Lose Weight Forever Review  (Diets That Work)

Ask roffe To Recommend Your Posts