gMetaDataParse

Extracts information from metadata_sqlite_db and the corresponding content_cache folder. Both artifacts of Google Drive for Desktop

Parsing the database and matching a file to the filename in the content_cache folder, if provided and the file is still in cache. Offers json and csv export as well as a GUI.

Usage

Option	Explanation
-f <FILE>, --file <FILE>	Path (relative or absolute) to the metadata_sqlite_db file. Example: C:\Data\metadata_sqlite_db
-d <DIRECTORY>, --directory <DIRECTORY>	Path (relative or absolute) to directory containing the cache. Example: C:\Data\content_cache
-o <DIRECTORY>, --output <DIRECTORY>	Path (relative or absolute) to directory were the output shoudl be written to. Example: C:\Data
-j <FILE>, --json <FILE>	Filename for JSON output. Example: res.json
-c <FILE>, --csv <FILE>	Filename for CSV output. Example: res.csv
-v, --verbose	Increase output verbosity
-g, --gui	Start GUI shown reconstruced directory tree with selected information. You need to use the -f option in combination with -g. To start just the GUI run without commands

GUI

Entries were a matching file found in the content_cache are marked in green color. If an entry is marked as trashed, it is marked in red. The node "NO_PARENT_ITME_IN_ITEMS_TABEL" is a node added by pMetaDataParse. It is used to sort the items where no parent could be found in the itmes table. It is NOT an entry present in the metadata_sqlite_db file.!

I further created an executable with auto-py-to-exe, this executable will open the GUI and you can select "content_cache" and "metadat_sqlite_db" via the menue. Click afterwards click reload.

One thing on the GUI: I will not show all data extracted, it is more to visualize things, focus on some important and have a more easy access to the tool. If you want to see everything that gMetaDataParse extracts, use the --csv or --json output in the command line.

Requirements

See requirements.txt.
To install on linux run (tested on fresh Ubuntu 22 install): apt install -y python3-pip; apt install -y python3-tk; pip3 install -r requirements.txt
To install on windows: install pip3; open PowerShell and run pip3 install -r requirements.txt OR you use the provided executable

Examples

# parse metadat_sqlite_db and the content cache folder, creating a csv file and a json file in the current directory
python3 ./gMetaDataParse.py -f ./gMetaDataParse.py -f .\metadata_sqlite_db -d .\content_cache\ -c res.csv -j res.json

# parse metadat_sqlite_db and the content cache folder, creating a csv file and a json file in the current directory AND lunch the GUI
python3 ./gMetaDataParse.py -f ./gMetaDataParse.py -f .\metadata_sqlite_db -d .\content_cache\ -c res.csv -j res.json -g

# parse metadat_sqlite_db and the content cache folder, starting the GUI showing the results
python3 ./gMetaDataParse.py -f ./gMetaDataParse.py -f .\metadata_sqlite_db -d .\content_cache\ -g

# starting the GUI, select metadata_sqlite_db and content_cache folder in the GUI
python3 ./gMetaDataParse.py

Limitations

If you review the code you will see a few things:
I'm not a GUI person and neither a person that likes to develop a GUI application. You will easily see this in the code; I still decided to offer write a very basic one.
The tool was basically done in the command line version, than I added the GUI on top. I might rewrite this in the future. Still I wanted to release, so the tool can be used.

Author

Mastodon: @b00010111
Blog: https://00010111.at/
Twitter: @b00010111

License

Free to use, reuse and redistribute for everyone.
No Limitations.
Of course attribution is always welcome but not mandatory.

Bugs, Discussions, Feature requests, contact

Still need to complete the description of each of the fields extracted and implement the function to print it.
open an issue
contact me via Mastodon
(reaching out via Twitter doesn't really work well anymore...sorry)

Change History

Version 0.0502:
- Fix issue 1
  - If neither json,csv,gui or verbose is choosen as output, gMetaDataParse will fall back to write csv output to local directory with a filename like: %Y%m%d_%H%M%S_output.csv
- improved error handling if database or cache dir are not found
Version 0.0501:
- Bug fix
- GUI was showing wrong data in 'Found in cache dir' column for deleted items. Thanks to @chadtilbury for pointing out the issue.
Version 0.0500:
- initial release

00010111/gMetaDataParse