Guten Haus

Documentation Guide

FAQ: backup fails with “Google Drive is not connected”

The most common cause of a recurring Gutenback failure email, and how to fix it.

By far the most common cause: the Google Cloud OAuth app is still in Testing publishing status. Google expires Testing-status refresh tokens after 7 days regardless of activity, so a connection that worked fine at setup silently dies about a week later — and every scheduled backup after that fails with the same email.

The fix

  1. In Google Cloud Console, open the OAuth consent screen for the app Gutenback uses.
  2. Click Publish App to move it to In production. This does not require Google’s review for a personal-use app like this one.
  3. In wp-admin, open Guten Backup and reconnect Google Drive.

You will see the same “unverified app” warning when reconnecting — that is expected and safe to click through.

If that is not it

Revoked account access or a changed Client Secret in Google Cloud Console will show the same message. Reconnect the same way — Gutenback detects a dead connection automatically and clears its own “Connected” state, so the setup form is waiting for you rather than needing to be found first.