Google Drive: apply a static classification label to every file written

Feature request: static label stamping on upload

What problem does this solve?

Organisations using Google Workspace data classification need every file synced to Drive to carry a sensitivity or classification label — for example a Confidential or Internal label required by DLP or compliance policy. Currently there is no way to achieve this with rclone: the existing label support reads and writes labels from source file metadata, but when syncing from a non-Drive source (local filesystem, S3, etc.) there is no label metadata to copy from.

Proposed solution

A new configuration option on the Google Drive backend that allows a fixed label to be specified, which rclone would then apply to every file it writes — regardless of the source backend.

The label definition would need to already exist in the Drive label schema; rclone would not create it.

The good news is that the fundamentals are already in place — rclone already supports reading and writing Drive labels via the existing metadata system. This would be a relatively small addition building on that foundation.

I have an implementation ready and am happy to open a PR.

Start with the Google Drive backend's existing label metadata read/write system and the upload path for files written from non-Drive sources. Trace how backend configuration reaches uploads and how labels are applied today. Done means a configured existing Drive label is applied to every uploaded file, with coverage for the new configuration and upload behavior.