diff --git a/backend/googlecloudstorage/googlecloudstorage.go b/backend/googlecloudstorage/googlecloudstorage.go
index 25866ff81..65f010dab 100644
--- a/backend/googlecloudstorage/googlecloudstorage.go
+++ b/backend/googlecloudstorage/googlecloudstorage.go
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ FIXME Patch/Delete/Get isn't working with files with spaces in - giving 404 erro
 */
 
 import (
+	"context"
 	"encoding/base64"
 	"encoding/hex"
 	"fmt"
@@ -45,6 +46,8 @@ import (
 	"golang.org/x/oauth2"
 	"golang.org/x/oauth2/google"
 	"google.golang.org/api/googleapi"
+
+	// NOTE: This API is deprecated
 	storage "google.golang.org/api/storage/v1"
 )
 
@@ -381,7 +384,11 @@ func NewFs(name, root string, m configmap.Mapper) (fs.Fs, error) {
 	} else {
 		oAuthClient, _, err = oauthutil.NewClient(name, m, storageConfig)
 		if err != nil {
-			return nil, errors.Wrap(err, "failed to configure Google Cloud Storage")
+			ctx := context.Background()
+			oAuthClient, err = google.DefaultClient(ctx, storage.DevstorageFullControlScope)
+			if err != nil {
+				return nil, errors.Wrap(err, "failed to configure Google Cloud Storage")
+			}
 		}
 	}
 
diff --git a/docs/content/googlecloudstorage.md b/docs/content/googlecloudstorage.md
index cf20d741c..86843bf65 100644
--- a/docs/content/googlecloudstorage.md
+++ b/docs/content/googlecloudstorage.md
@@ -217,6 +217,20 @@ the rclone config file, you can set `service_account_credentials` with
 the actual contents of the file instead, or set the equivalent
 environment variable.
 
+### Application Default Credentials ###
+
+If no other source of credentials is provided, rclone will fall back
+to
+[Application Default Credentials](https://cloud.google.com/video-intelligence/docs/common/auth#authenticating_with_application_default_credentials)
+this is useful both when you already have configured authentication
+for your developer account, or in production when running on a google
+compute host. Note that if running in docker, you may need to run
+additional commands on your google compute machine -
+[see this page](https://cloud.google.com/container-registry/docs/advanced-authentication#gcloud_as_a_docker_credential_helper).
+
+Note that in the case application default credentials are used, there
+is no need to explicitly configure a project number.
+
 ### --fast-list ###
 
 This remote supports `--fast-list` which allows you to use fewer