Google Drive – Upload Photos/Videos Without Syncing

The following is a recipe for a comparison based on filenames alone, not based on file modification times or even content checksums. But it's a start :) Also, the below is to compare two directories that are both on Google Drive, but you can easily adapt it by generating a list of your local files instead with some call to ls. (So obviously, the below is a recipe for Linux.)

1. Install and configure drive

drive is a Linux command line client for Google Drive. The easiest is to install it from a package.

After that:

1. Change into the directory on your computer that includes your whole files synced from Google Drive:

   cd /home/user/example-dir/
   

2. Initialize drive with access to your Google Drive. This will ask you to visit a URL and paste the auth code you get there, and save this in a config file in the current directory.

   drive init
   

2. Comparing directories

I found that for large Google Drive folders (36 GiB of small files in my case), starting by comparing directories and fixing cases of missing directories was a good first step. (Also because drive has no option to copy directories without the files inside between two Google Drive folders. Not a problem if you compare between local and remote files only.)

drive list -directories -recursive -no-prompt -sort name "source dir" > DirDiff.1-source.txt
drive list -directories -recursive -no-prompt - 

sort name "dest dir" > DirDiff.2-dest.txt

vim -es +"%s/^\/source dir\///g" +"wq" DirDiff.1-source.txt
vim -es +"%s/^\/dest dir\///g" +"wq" DirDiff.2-dest.txt

The drive command obtain lists of directories from Google Drive, and the vim commands remove the differing base directories from each path so that comparison will work properly.

Now to list the directories that are only in the source tree:

comm -23 <(sort < DirDiff.1-source.txt) <(sort < DirDiff.2-dest.txt) > DirDiff.3-missing.txt

And to show the directories that are only in the destination tree:

comm -13 <(sort < DirDiff.1-source.txt) <(sort < DirDiff.2-dest.txt) > DirDiff.4-added.txt

About using comm like this, see here.

3. Comparing files

This works very similar to comparing directory trees:

drive list -recursive -no-prompt -sort name "source dir" > 1-source-files.txt
drive list -recursive -no-prompt -sort name "dest dir" > 2-dest-files.txt

vim -es +"%s/^\/source dir\///g" +"wq" DirDiff.1-source.txt
vim -es +"%s/^\/dest dir\///g" +"wq" DirDiff.2-dest.txt

To show the files only in the source tree:

comm -23 <(sort < FileDiff.1-source.txt) <(sort < FileDiff.2-dest.txt) > FileDiff.3-missing.txt

To show the files only in the destination tree:

comm -13 <(sort < FileDiff.1-source.txt) <(sort < FileDiff.2-dest.txt) > FileDiff.4-added.txt

Yes, Google Photos can access photos saved in Google Drive. The Google Drive search view in Google Photos displays photos by date, not by the Google Drive folder structure.

From How Google Drive works with Google Photos - Photos Help

View your Google Drive photos & videos in Google Photos

In Google Photos, you can do things like create collages and GIFs, edit your photos, make movies, and share with people you care about.

You'll see your Google Drive photos and videos in the "Photos" section of the Google Photos app, but you can also see just your Google Drive photos & videos using the Google Photos app.

...

Computer

1. Go to photos.google.com/search.
2. At the bottom right, click Google Drive.

SEE MY DRIVE PHOTOS

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Note: If you edit a photo in Google Photos, those edits don't show in the Drive version of the photo. To have the edited photo appear in your Drive folder, download the edited photo in Google Photos and upload it to your Drive folder.