OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud & cloud-synced folders

Updated Oct 6, 2026 · 2 min read

Cloud-synced folders look local but their files may live online. Here's how Meshory handles them and what to expect on first scan.

Folders synced by OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud Drive, and similar services often hold placeholder files: they show up in your file browser, but the actual bytes live in the cloud until something reads them, at which point the sync client downloads them on the spot. That's great for disk space, but it means a program that reads many files in a row can quietly trigger a lot of downloading.

Meshory recognizes sources that live inside a cloud-synced folder (including Google Drive's mounted drive letter) and shows them with a cloud icon in the sidebar. They're treated with the same care as network drives: duplicate fingerprinting runs as a separate, gentler pass you can pause or switch off, and the app avoids bulk re-reads of files it has already processed, so an app update never turns into re-downloading your library.

Indexing itself stays cheap. Meshory lists a cloud folder from its directory entries and file metadata, which is what Windows lets it read without hydrating anything, so a OneDrive, Dropbox or Google Drive source appears in full without pulling a single model down. A placeholder whose sync provider is offline is left out of that scan and picked up on a later one, once the provider is back.

What to expect on the first scan

There's one cost no app can avoid: rendering a thumbnail requires the file's actual bytes. By default, previews are drawn as you browse, so that download happens for the models you actually look at, as you scroll to them, instead of for the whole source up front. The thumbnail then lives in Meshory's own local cache, so browsing it again never touches the original. Opening a model in the 3D viewer reads just that one file.

Switching Preview generation to All upfront changes that: after each scan, Meshory reads every model in the source in full to render its preview, so the sync client downloads every file it hasn't kept a copy of. Once that run finishes, cards come straight from Meshory's cache. On a large cloud library, make the folder available offline in your sync client before switching, so every read comes from your disk.