Connect your Google Drive to stellarbase to search, reference, and use your documents with AI-powered agents. stellarbase syncs your folder structure, processes content for AI search, and keeps everything up to date automatically.

How it works

stellarbase connects to your Google Drive so you can search, reference, and use your documents with AI-powered agents. When you connect a Drive account, stellarbase syncs the file structure from folders you choose, processes the content for AI search, and keeps everything up to date automatically. Your files stay in Google Drive — the sync process reads them to build a searchable index but does not modify or move them. You can also upload, create folders, and delete files directly from stellarbase when you choose to.

How to connect your Google Drive

Before you start, you need a Google account with files in Google Drive and access to a stellarbase base with storage editing permissions.

1. Click Storages under the Connections group in the sidebar.
2. Click the Connect a storage card at the end of the storage grid.
3. In the Connect Storage dialog, click the Google Drive tile.
4. Enter a name for this storage connection in the Storage Name field.
5. Click Connect Storage.
6. A Google sign-in window opens. Sign in with the Google account whose Drive you want to connect.
7. On the Google consent screen, review the permissions stellarbase is requesting and click Allow.
8. The window closes and you return to stellarbase. A new storage tile appears with a connecting status while the first sync runs.

After the initial sync completes, the tile switches to online and your Drive folders appear in the Sources view. stellarbase checks for changes approximately every five minutes and updates your Base automatically.

Allow popups for the stellarbase domain before clicking Connect Storage. The browser must open the Google sign-in window immediately — if popups are blocked, the connection flow will fail with an error.

Choosing which folders stellarbase indexes

After connecting your Drive, you choose which folders stellarbase processes for AI search. By default, no folders are selected — you decide exactly what stellarbase indexes.

1. Click Select folders to process on your Google Drive storage tile.
2. Browse your Drive folder tree and check the folders you want stellarbase to index.
3. Optionally enable Include files not in folders to process files stored at the root of your Drive.
4. Click Save.

stellarbase only reads and processes files inside your selected folders. Files outside your selection are synced as metadata (they appear in the file listing) but their content is not read or processed. You can change your folder selection at any time — adding a folder triggers processing for the files inside it, and removing a folder stops future processing of its contents.

Using Drive files with agents and search

Once stellarbase processes your Drive files, the content becomes available across the platform. You can also upload new files, download synced files, create folders, and delete files directly from the Sources view.

• AI search — Search across all processed documents using natural language. stellarbase finds relevant passages even when your search terms don’t match the exact words in the document.
• Agent conversations — When you chat with an agent in stellarbase, it can reference and cite content from your processed Drive files to provide informed answers.
• File browsing — Browse your synced Drive files in the Sources view. The file listing mirrors your Drive folder structure within the selected scope.

How stellarbase handles your Drive data

This section explains what data stellarbase accesses from your Google Drive, how that data is stored and protected, and what stellarbase will never do with it.

What access stellarbase requests

When you connect Google Drive, stellarbase requests the drive scope (to access your files) and the userinfo.email scope (to identify the connected Google account). stellarbase needs the drive scope to list your existing folder structure and sync files from folders you already have in Drive.

stellarbase syncs file metadata (names, types, folder structure) across your Drive to display the folder tree and detect changes, but only reads file content within the folders you explicitly select for processing.

What stellarbase accesses

stellarbase reads the following from your Google Drive account:

• File content — only within folders you select for processing. stellarbase reads the content of documents, spreadsheets, images, and other supported files to build a searchable index.
• File metadata — names, MIME types, sizes, folder structure, and modification timestamps for all synced files. Metadata is used to display your file listing and detect changes.
• Your Google account email — used to identify which Google account is connected to the storage.

What stellarbase stores

When you connect your Google Drive, stellarbase stores the following on its servers:

• Encrypted OAuth tokens — the access and refresh tokens that allow stellarbase to communicate with Google Drive on your behalf. These are encrypted at rest before being stored (see “How your data is protected” below).
• File metadata records — file names, types, sizes, and folder structure for all files in your connected Drive, stored to display your file listing and detect changes. Metadata for files outside your selected processing folders is stored but their content is never read.
• Processed text chunks and embeddings — stellarbase breaks document text into passages and generates numerical embeddings (vector representations) used for AI search.
• Image captions — for image files, stellarbase generates short text descriptions to make images searchable by content.
• Extracted text transcripts — for processed documents and images, stellarbase saves the extracted text as plain-text and formatted files used for indexing.

stellarbase does not store a copy of your original files. File content is read from Google Drive, processed into the formats listed above, and the original content is not retained.

What stellarbase does not do with your Drive data

• We do not use your Drive data to train AI models.
• We do not sell or share your Drive data with third parties for their use.
• We do not use it for advertising.
• We do not allow human review except with your consent or for security/legal reasons.

How your data is protected

stellarbase protects your Google Drive data with multiple layers of security:

• Token encryption — OAuth access and refresh tokens are encrypted at rest using AES-256-GCM before being stored in the database. Tokens are never stored in plain text.
• Infrastructure encryption — processed content (text chunks, embeddings, image captions, transcripts) is stored on cloud infrastructure with encryption applied at the storage layer.
• Access controls — internal access to your data is restricted to authorized services. Base-level permissions control which team members can view your connected storages and their contents.
• Encrypted connections — all data transferred between stellarbase and Google Drive, and between stellarbase and external processing services, travels over encrypted connections (TLS).

Third-party services used for processing

stellarbase uses specialized third-party services to process your Drive files into searchable content. Each service handles a specific part of the processing pipeline:

• Mistral — extracts text from images and scanned documents (OCR) and generates image captions. Receives image and document content, returns extracted text or image descriptions.
• Google Cloud Document AI — optical character recognition for PDFs and images. Receives document content, returns extracted text.
• Scaleway Generative APIs — generates numerical embeddings (vector representations) from text. Receives text passages, returns embedding vectors used for AI search.

File content is sent to these services only for the purpose of processing and is not retained beyond the time needed to return results. We configure each provider’s data protection and privacy settings to prevent your data from being used for model training.

Limited Use commitment

stellarbase’s use and transfer of information received from Google APIs to any other app will adhere to Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Removing Google Drive

To remove a Google Drive connection from your base:

1. Click Storages under the Connections group in the sidebar.
2. Find the Google Drive storage tile and open its ⋮ menu.
3. Click Delete and confirm the deletion in the dialog that appears.

When you delete a Google Drive storage, stellarbase:

• Revokes its authorization to access your Google Drive account.
• Deletes the stored OAuth tokens from stellarbase’s servers.
• Removes all synced file records from your Base.
• Deletes all processed AI search content derived from those files, including text chunks, embeddings, image captions, and extracted text transcripts.

Your files in Google Drive are not affected by the removal — they remain exactly as they were. stellarbase only removes its own metadata and processed content.

Tips

• Supported file types — stellarbase processes PDFs, Word documents (.docx), PowerPoint presentations (.pptx), Excel spreadsheets (.xlsx, .xls), HTML pages (.html, .htm), EPUB books, Outlook emails (.msg), plain text files (.txt, .md, .rst), data files (.csv, .json, .xml, .yaml, .yml), and images (.png, .jpg, .jpeg, .webp, .tiff, .tif, .bmp). Other file types appear in the file listing but are not processed for AI search.
• Sharing with your team — All members of your base who have storage viewing permissions can search and reference the processed content from your Drive files. You do not need to share individual files — connecting a Drive storage makes the processed content available to your team.
• Two-way deletion — Deleting a synced Drive file in stellarbase also removes it from Google Drive. Deleting a file directly in Google Drive causes stellarbase to remove it on the next sync. Both sides stay in sync.
• Automatic updates — New files, renamed files, moved files, and deleted files are detected automatically during periodic syncs. You can also trigger a manual sync from the storage tile’s ⋮ menu.
• Google Workspace files — Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides appear in your file listing but their content is not indexed for AI search. To make their content searchable, export them to PDF or DOCX from Google Drive and upload the exported file.
• Switching Google accounts — To connect a different Google account, delete the current Google Drive storage and create a new one. Sign in with the other account during the consent screen step.

FAQ

What file types can stellarbase process from Google Drive? Documents (PDF, DOCX, PPTX, XLSX, XLS, HTML, HTM, EPUB, MSG), text files (TXT, MD, RST), data files (CSV, JSON, XML, YAML, YML), and images (PNG, JPG, JPEG, WEBP, TIFF, TIF, BMP). Unsupported file types still appear in your file listing but their content is not indexed for AI search.

Can other members of my base see my Drive files? Yes. Base members with storage viewing permissions can search and reference processed content from connected Drive files. The storage connection belongs to the base, not to an individual user.

What happens to my Drive files when I remove the storage? Nothing. Your files in Google Drive are never modified or deleted when you remove a storage connection from stellarbase. stellarbase only removes its own metadata, processed content, and authorization tokens.

How do I delete all my Google Drive data from stellarbase? Delete the Google Drive storage from your base. This removes all synced file records, processed content, and stored authorization tokens. Your files in Google Drive are not affected. For account-level data deletion requests, contact stellarbase support.

What happens if my Google Drive authorization expires? If you change your Google password, revoke access from your Google account settings, or the connection is inactive for an extended period, the sync may stop and the storage tile will show an error. Already processed files remain searchable. A Reconnect Google Drive button will appear on the storage tile — click it to re-authorize and resume sync.

Does connecting Google Drive give stellarbase access to all my files? The drive scope grants stellarbase the technical ability to read and write to your Drive. The sync process only reads — it syncs metadata across your Drive and reads file content within folders you select for processing. Write operations (uploading files, creating folders, deleting files) only happen when you explicitly initiate them from stellarbase. Files outside your selection are listed as metadata only — their content is never read.

How do I change which folders stellarbase processes? Click the folder selection button on your Google Drive storage tile to reopen the folder picker. Check or uncheck folders, then save. Newly selected folders are processed automatically; removed folders stop being processed but existing content from them remains until the storage is deleted.

Related

• Data Sources overview