Why do I see empty but undeletable files in Google Drive?

Question

I'm using Ubuntu Gnome 16.04. I added my google account to online accounts and checked to sync my Google Drive files. There are a few files in the mounted drive that only appear on my computer. So not on the web interface or the android app. They each have a file size of 0 bytes and cannot be opened, moved, or deleted. But oddly there is a thumbnail for some. It's like there is just enough information in the file to display what it is.

None of them are files I added and later removed. But they all seem to be related to things that I have had in my computer at one time or another. Some photoshop files when I was doing some projects, some text files with names that are related to some of my interests. Point is I do think these are ghosts of my files. But I have just recently started using Google Drive, these files were there from the start of me using Google Drive.

I tried deleting them from the app, but like I said above they don't appear there. Also tried to locate them on the web interface, but not there either. Only in my computer file explorer.

Any ideas of what I can do about these? They aren't really hurting my computer or me, but they are kind of messy and I have to overlook them when looking through my files from my computer.

Answer 1

I discovered where they were in the web interface, they were in the recent files and shared files. Somehow I had some files shared to my drive and once I removed them they were removed from my computer. So it seems on the computer through gnome online accounts it doesn't separate your files from shared files. Hope this helps someone else with a similar issue!