Google Backup and Sync is a new app that syncs to Photos and Drive. Read on to see how it stacks up against OneDrive, Dropbox, Backblaze, and Crashplan.
Back up files from your computer, camera, or SD cards to the cloud. Find your files on any device or computer using Google Drive, and see your photos in Google Photos. Download Learn More. Feb 21, 2019 Backup and Sync is Google Drive’s app for Windows and Mac computers that lets you access Google Drives files on your computer and also creates a backup of your selected local files to Google Drive. It also offers the ability to add photos to Google Photos. Oct 18, 2019 On your Mac, go to System Preferences iCloud. Click the Options button next to Photos, then select iCloud Photos. On your Apple TV, go to Settings Accounts iCloud iCloud Photos. On your PC, follow the steps to set up iCloud Photos. If you've already synced photos to.
This month, Google launched a new Backup and Sync desktop app for files and photos. This new app replaces its previous Drive app for Mac and Windows. Google Backup and Sync also uploads photos and videos to Google Photos, thus making the Google Photos app obsolete. Google Backup and Sync works on any folder, not just a designated Google Drive folder. This makes it possible to backup all your personal files or files from a USB drive or SD card or your entire system (if you wanted to). You can even use it as a redundant back up for your files in other cloud storage services like Dropbox and OneDrive.
I was already using Google Photos to maintain a backup of all my photos on my PC and iPhone. I decided to give it a try to see how the new unified app works.
One question you might ask: Does this make Backup and Sync a viable replacement for services like Backblaze and CrashPlan? Let’s find out.
Using Google’s New Backup and Sync App for Windows and Mac
To get started, download the Google Backup and Sync app from the Google Drive or Photos page. Backup and Sync requires a Google account of course, which is free if you don’t have one already.
Once installed, the software is pretty simple and straightforward. All you need to do is sign in, choose the folders you would like to back up, then let Google take care of the rest. When it’s done, you can easily access your files on any device, whether it’s using native clients like Google Photos or Google Drive apps or from the web at photos.google.com or drive.google.com. As Google advertises, files are continuously backed up, so, the most minute of changes are saved and synced across your devices.
One of the much-touted benefits of Google Backup and Sync is the ability to back up anything and everything. Of course, once you go down this road, you’ll quickly eat up your 15 GB of free Google Drive storage. Additional storage starts at $1.99/month for 100 GB. Or you can get 1 TB For $9.99 / month. Paying yearly gets you a slight discount.
Got a user friendly interface which will let the beginners to work easily. Can transfer the files, host the meetings and presentations with various different users. Can take over the desktop of someone and make demonstrations. An impressive application which can be used for controlling your PC remotely. Features of TeamViewer Filehippo Download. Free mp3 download for mac.
You should also note that Google Drive saves versions of files for up to 30 days. This is a nice feature. It lets you roll back to an earlier version of a document if it becomes corrupted, accidentally changed, or encrypted by ransomware. Previous versions don’t count against your storage quota.
Google Backup and Sync does provide some nice options, especially for users who might want to use Google as a secondary backup service for files on another cloud service such as OneDrive or Dropbox. You can upload unlimited high-quality copies of photos and videos. If you are a Mac user, this is definitely a reason to leave behind Apple’s mediocre iCloud, which limits you to 5 GBs. You can even have your attached SD card and USB storage backed up.
Finally, you can sync the contents of your Google Drive to your local disks, or if you prefer having specific folders—for example, just your photos and videos—you can choose those instead. When you are ready, click the Start button to start syncing.
You can monitor your syncing activity from the Backup and Sync notification within the Taskbar.
An option you might want to enable after setting up is the ability to delete files across devices. I decided to enable it because sometimes I backup screenshots I don’t want to see on other devices. Deleting them frees up space on my Drive and across my devices.
The Google Drive website provides a clean web interface that makes it easy to navigate and find the backed up files for each computer.
Google Backup and Sync vs. CrashPlan and Backblaze
So, the Google Backup and Sync app have “backup” right in its name. But is it a viable replacement for something like CrashPlan or Backblaze?
At this point, probably not. Remember, you only get 15 GB of free storage with Google Drive and only 30 days of recent versions. On the other hand, CrashPlan gives you unlimited backups for one computer for $59.99 a year and unlimited versions of your files. Restoring an entire system with something like CrashPlan or Backblaze is easier, too. If your files were encrypted or infected by malware and you needed to restore them, you’d have to restore files on an individual basis with Google Drive.
Even if you don’t choose an online backup solution, the built-in System Image option in Windows 10 is still a better choice for a system backup. If you have 5 TB hard drives of data—not to mention existing configurations using technologies like Storage Pools—Google Drive won’t replace your backup needs. That being said, for users who might own a few devices, especially a mix of say Windows and Mac and you just want to be able to easily backup the most important things like Videos, Photos, and Files, it’s definitely recommended.
Conclusion
I was most impressed with the performance and stability; it seems much faster than Microsoft’s OneDrive, which can sometimes fail for one reason or another. I am a bit peeved though why Google who uses a lot of open source technologies doesn’t provide similar clients for Linux. The benefits outweigh the disadvantages though; Backup and Sync takes the chore out of more traditional drag and drops or organizing files and folders to get them backed up to the cloud. For anyone with or without a Google Account, I recommend you check it out.
Google has decided to merge two of its backup and syncing utilities for Mac – Google Drive and Google Photos Uploader into a brand new app that does everything that the two app did. For individual users, you can use Google’s Backup & Sync to backup photos, any folder and sync your entire Google Drive folder with the Mac (like Dropbox).
Basically, Google wants you to use its service to backup all your data, not just selected files or photos. It will backup Desktop and Document folder by default (which is similar to the iCloud feature released in macOS Sierra) but you are free to select more folders (as long as you have the storage space on Google Drive).
What Is Backup And Sync Downloading For Mac Photoshop
Because the app tries to do a lot, it can be a bit confusing to use. We’re here to help.
Download: Google Backup and Sync for Mac
What All Does Google Backup and Sync Do?
Here are all the main features of the Backup and Sync app.
Back up original or high-quality photos from the Pictures folder (Apple Photos library).
Backup Desktop and Documents folder (or add more folders on your own).
Sync all or selected folders from Google Drive to your Mac.
Access synced files to Google Drive from anywhere with the new Computers section.
How to Set It up Right
During installation, the app will ask you to configure the backup and the sync procedure.
On the second step, you can uncheck if you don’t want to sync the Desktop and Documents folders. Or if you want to add more folders, click on Choose Folder.
Another important thing is to check the Upload photos and videos to Google Photos box. This makes sure that the photos aren’t just uploaded to a Google Drive folder. This way, they’ll be added automatically to Google Photos as well and you’ll benefit from all the Assistant intelligent features that come with Google Photos.
From the third step (Google Drive), you can decide if you want to sync your entire Google Drive setup with your Mac or not. You can choose to sync just the selected folders by clicking on Sync only these folders.
After you click the Start button, the backup process will begin. Download video game music mp3. Click on the cloud icon in the menu bar and you’ll be able to see the progress. Here you’ll find shortcuts to open Google Photos, Google Drive and more.
Notable Preferences
Click on the backup icon, then the menu button and select Preferences.
From the first section, you can uncheck or add more folders, and select the quality of photo uploads. You can also add external USB devices for backup here.
From Google Drive section you can change the folder to sync to.
From Settings section, you can see how much cloud storage you’re using and you can choose to upgrade to a plan with more storage.
From Network Settings, you can limit the upload and download speed.
Download: Google Backup and Sync for Mac
What Do You Think of the New App?
I’m personally enjoying the update. After making sure that my photos were uploaded to Google Photos, I haven’t had much of a problem. In fact, for me, it has been much better than using Google Photos Uploader app. The upload has been smooth and I only got one error instead of dozens I used to get before.
What do you think of the new app? Do you find it confusing? Useful? Are you syncing Google Drive or your personal folders with it? Share with us in the comments below.