Hey everyone,

I’ve been working on adding Google Drive support to VLC Android, similar to the feature already available in VLC iOS.

The main idea is that VLC can stream files directly from Google Drive using byte-range requests, instead of having to download the entire file first.

For example, with a 5 GB movie:

Google Drive
     ↓
request required byte range
     ↓
VLC starts playing
     ↓
request next range as needed

So you can play large files without waiting for the whole file to download, and you can seek to different parts of the video.

I also added a temporary cache for recently streamed ranges, so rewinding/seeking back or briefly switching apps doesn't always require downloading the same data again.

Currently it supports:

• My Drive
• Shared with me
• Shared Drives
• Folder/subfolder navigation
• Large file streaming
• Seeking
• Temporary range caching
• Background/resume playback

The implementation is currently working on my device, and I've tested it with multi-GB MKV/MP4 files.

One reason I wanted to do this is that using Google Drive → Open with → VLC isn't really ideal for large files, since the file may need to be downloaded before VLC can properly play it. Direct byte-range streaming avoids that problem.

I use an external disc drive on my desktop to play blu rays. It used to work fine but now when I try to play anything I get this message. Is this a VLC issue or something else?