- Google Drive is much more than just a cloud-based storage and syncing service with an excellent free storage plan. It also lets you create, edit, store, and collaborate on documents.
- Google Drive App For Mac Download. By greenchaporli1987 Follow Public. Read more Collapse Reviews Review Policy 4.3 6,369,503 total 5 4 3 2 1 Loading Whats New Bug fixes and performance improvements. Similar See more Google Chrome: Fast Secure Google LLC Fast, simple, and secure.
Google Docs, an expansive third-party app library, collaboration features and great support are among the positive checkmarks we’ll discuss in this Google Drive review. You also get 15GB of free storage, which for many users will be plenty of space (others may want to check our article on the providers).
Download the latest version of Google Drive File Stream for Mac - View files on Google Drive and edit directly on your computer. Read 2 user reviews of Google Drive File Stream on MacUpdate. Access Google Drive with a free Google account (for personal use) or Google Workspace account (for business use).
We’ll also point out a few areas that those concerned about file security will want to be aware of. These include no passwords for file sharing, Google marketing practices and no native option for private encryption. If you do find those reasons compelling, don’t forget to check out our other for some Google Drive alternatives. Also, Google Drive can now backup any folder on your computer. While that’s useful, it doesn’t come with the features like backup scheduling or block-level backup that you’ll find standard with the services.
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Meaning, we can’t advocate for Google Drive to replace your Backblaze (read our ) account just yet. As a cloud storage service, the primary purpose of Google Drive is to save space on your computer and mobile device hard drives by letting you keep files on a server, instead. To that end, it succeeds thanks to 15GB of free storage (shared with Google Photos and Gmail) and key features like selective sync and automatic mobile uploads. Google Drive moves well beyond simple cloud storage, though, with its integrated Google Docs office suite. Google Docs is a browser-based and includes word processor (Docs), spreadsheet (Sheets) and presentation (Slides) software. The suite, which is free to use, has emerged as a direct competitor to Microsoft Office. Within Google Docs, you can collaborate with others in near real-time with options like suggested edits and comments.
You can also view revisions that others have made and rollback to previous file versions if you don’t like something you see. File versioning is available for non-Docs files, too.
Like Google Drive's appeal to Google users, OneDrive will be a good fit for anyone who is committed to using Microsoft's services. There's neat integration with Outlook.com, for instance.
By default, versions are only kept for 30 days but you can choose to keep any specific version indefinitely. Deleted files are also kept indefinitely, moved to the trash until you delete them there. On top of Google Docs, Google Drive has a third-party app library that contains hundreds if not thousands of other software integrations that you can add. Most of those are free, too.
As with most cloud storage tools, Google Drive can also sync files across computers, using a sync folder added to your file system to make that happen. Desktop clients are available for Windows and MacOS.
Browser-based access and mobile apps for Android and iOS are also available. There’s no Linux desktop client, yet, which is a bit disappointing. Check out our and our article for some alternatives. There is a small workaround, read our guide on for more info, but may not be enough for most users. There’s no question that collaboration is the killer value proposition of Google Drive and one of the big reasons people choose it over some of the options detailed in our library.
However, all that said, when it comes to file sharing and security features, other options shine brighter. With regard to security, the elephant in the room is the monkey on Google Drive’s back: its aversion to private, end-to-end encryption (or rather, ). We’ll talk more about that — and Google’s approach to privacy in general — later in the review.
We’ll hit on file sharing, too, and why some missed features like link password protection make Google Drive less than ideal for that task. A few other features we like with Google Drive include music and video streaming from the cloud and the ability to preview just about any type of file, including images. File backup is also an option now, ever since Google revamped its desktop client in June, 2017.
The client, now called “backup and sync,” lets you backup folders to Google Drive. Backup takes place continuously, meaning as changes to files in folders tagged for backup happen, those changes get copied to the remote server. It’s handy but doesn’t provide the ease of use and speed of a dedicated online backup tool. We’ll mark it as a work in progress. Google Drive Features Overview. $ 299 99 monthly Storage 15 GB 100 GB 1000 GB 2000 GB 10000 GB 20000 GB 30000 GB Details Free plan.
Annual Discount: 16% Annual Discount: 17% Annual Discount: n/a Annual Discount: n/a Annual Discount: n/a Annual Discount: n/a While the range of options is nice — especially the 100GB plan — you can do better if you’re looking for a deal. Sync.com, for example, gets you 2TB of cloud storage for just. Adobe flash player free download. It’s also a bit strange that Google doesn’t extend its discount for signing up annually to plans larger than 1TB.
Storing files in the Google Drive cloud is as simple as downloading the backup and sync desktop client and moving files into the sync folder created on your computer. You can manage backup and sync settings by clicking on the backup and sync taskbar icon and using the settings menu to select “preferences.” This will open an interface to manage your account.
There are three tabs in the interface: my laptop, Google Drive and settings. Use the “my laptop” tab to add folders to your backup and use Google Drive to manage your sync folder. The settings tab has few basic options like running the client on system startup and a link to upgrade your subscription. While the sync folder is critical, with its wealth of online application integrations available, there’s a good chance you’re going to spend more time accessing Google Drive through your browser than using the desktop client. Google’s done a nice job refining its web experience over the years.
While it contains many features, the browser interface is nicely designed and reasonably intuitive. Navigation options along the left let you access your drive file structure, check what computer are synced, see what content has been shared with you and access your Google Photos account. There’s also a trash bin where deleted files go and a tab to access files that have been backed up, if you use that feature. The Google Drive mobile app comes preinstalled on Android and is another convenient way of getting at your files on the go. One of the nice things is that you can edit files directly from the Google Drive app.
With other cloud storage tools, you have to download the file first and open it in another app. File Sharing & Syncing. Sync relies heavily on a special folder in your file system called a sync folder. Put a file in the folder and it gets sent to the cloud and any other devices connected to your Drive account. This same model is used by most other cloud storage services. Sync is convenient for productivity, but it also works by storing files on both your computer and in the cloud.
For many people, the goal of cloud storage is to save space on your hard drive by saving files on the cloud, instead. Google Drive fulfills this need with a feature called selective sync that lets you turn off sync for specific folders. We’ll take a look at file sync speed later. Overall, the mechanism is pretty smooth, which is true of most cloud storage services. Google Drive file sharing, on the other hand, could use some improvements. The feature works simply enough: right-click on a file or folder and click “share” to open up your share options. You can email access to individuals or setup an access link.
You can also set view, comment and edit permissions at the email or link level. Where Google Drive falls short is with regard to features designed to help you keep control over your file shares. For example, you can’t set link passwords or expiry dates like you can with. While you have a “shared with me” folder, Google Drive doesn’t provide a corresponding “shared by me” folder to see what files you’ve shared with others. That makes it easy to lose track of file links you’ve created. With no link passwords, that could lead to issues with unauthorized access.
If you’re looking for tighter control over your file shares, our article reviews better options. Test One: Test Two: Average: Upload: 11:11 10:23 10:47 Download: 4:56 4:54 4:55 The results are comparable for file upload times with other cloud storage services, so no problems there. In most cases, you won’t be working with 1GB files, so expect much lower times in general. The opportunity for improvement would be to offer block-level file copying like Dropbox and do. With, only the changed parts of files are transferred instead of recopying the whole file.
The advantage is that it pushes collaborations closer to near real-time. https://iinchd.weebly.com/blog/what-mac-app-has-a-flower-icon. Google Drive does have speed-throttling, which you can use to slow file transfers if sync’s hogging system resources.
In most cases, though, that shouldn’t be a problem. Security & Privacy Policy. For some people, Google Drive will forever be connected to the NSA’s.
While the NSA states that the project is only used to target terrorist threats and while Google has denied giving the NSA full access to private data, the presence of the technology and potential for greater reach is unnerving, at best. Google also scans data, both in Gmail and Google Drive, which is mostly used for marketing.
Mac os x hide running app from dock. From the company’s: “Our automated systems analyze your content (including emails) to provide you personally relevant product features, such as customized search results, tailored advertising, and spam and malware detection. This analysis occurs as the content is sent, received, and when it is stored.” While some people might like this aspect of Google, others will see it as a personal invasion and a reason to consider more secure services.
The simple answer would be for Google to offer private end-to-end encryption like those providers in our roundup. However, while there’s no native E2E option, Google is compatible with Boxcryptor, one of the better private encryption applications (read our ). Scanning aside, your files are encrypted while in transit between your device and the Google data center using transport-layer security and AES 128-bit encryption. As a result of the PRISM fallout, Google took the hint and started stored at rest on its servers (before they were left in plain text). Granted, that’s something it should have been doing from the start. Google has a option, which is something we’d like to see more cloud storage services make available. 2FA gives you some measure of protection from password theft by requiring an additional access code when logging into your account from an unfamiliar machine.
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Customer Service. Google has a generally very good support network with many different avenues to find answers to questions. Not many cloud storage services can compete with Google Drive in this regard. If you’re looking to contact customer service, clicking the “contact us” at the top of the page will launch a wizard that Google uses to help you find the fastest contact option. Generally, that means launching a chat session, which is available 24/7. Email support is also available. Telephone support used to be an option for personal users, but looks now like that’s a channel now restricted to G Suite subscribers.
Many cloud storage services stick to email support, so we won’t complain too much. Mac server app free. In terms of online resources, Google maintains a Google Drive help center to look up common questions. The Google Drive user community might be an even better resource. Crowdsourcing solutions to issues can be a pretty effective approach and Google Drive user forums are more active than any other cloud storage user forum that comes to mind. We use frequently here at Cloudwards.net to collaborate internally, taking advantage of the fact that Google Docs is great for producing content (also, free). It’s fair to say we’re fans.
Do you ever click a link to an email address and get frustrated when Outlook or Apple Mail pops up, rather than Gmail? Google Chrome makes it stunningly easy to make your Gmail account the default when clicking linked email addresses. Setting up default email on chrome for mac windows 10. Hi, Please be informed that you cannot set Outlook/Hotmail as a default email client.Outlook/Hotmail is an email service provider and it is configured on your email client such as Windows Live Mail. Once you have configured your Outlook/Hotmail account on Windows Live Mail, you can now able to send emails as your Outlook/Hotmail using an email client. The default email client in Mac OS X is the simply named “Mail” app, and it’s a pretty good mail application, but what if you’d rather use something else, like ThunderBird, Sparrow, pine, or a browser and web mail client like Gmail? How to make Gmail the default mail app in Safari Sadly, setting up Safari to open mailto links in Gmail isn’t as straightforward as it is for browsers like Chrome and Firefox.
Google Drive Download For Mac
Even if we weren’t, Google’s a bit hard to get away from these days. Respect aside, there are compelling reasons to consider Google Drive alternatives. Large corporations, even those founded with certain principles in mind (“don’t be evil” is Google’s corporate motto), have developed appetites for consumer data. If you don’t want your files, photos and other content to be used for marketing and want to be sure that data doesn’t make its way into a government surveillance database at some point now’s the time to start taking prevent measures. We’ve got suggestions for.
However, one of the easiest steps is to store your files in a cloud built around consumer privacy. To that end, we have recommendations for the options. Going with an alternate option might save you money, too. While in line with Dropbox, there are to be found. As mentioned earlier, with Sync.com costs two dollars less than 1TB of Google Drive. That means you’ll be saving money and getting more storage. You can still take advantage of Google Docs with a free 15GB account, too.
That’s all we’ve got on Google Drive for now. Be sure and check out our more options, and don’t forget to leave your comments below. Thanks for reading! Google’s backup and sync ate ALL my monthly data allowance IN ONE DAY!!!
Google Drive Mac App Reviews
I was syncing just 2 folders, one 6 gigs, one 8 gigs. So why did it use ALL that data, and I wasn’t making ANY changes to those files AT ALL.
Apparently this crappy app just churns away in the background, loading, uploading, re-uploading, re-re-uploading, and re-re-re-uploading unchanged files literally ALL day long. When I manually tried to upload one small 100mg file to dropbox, it told me it would take 5 hours. Upon further investigation it was because Backup and Sync was hogging all the bandwidth. This app is not just worthless, it is VERY HARMFUL. I now have to pay my provider for additional data for this month, because Google has ruined EVERYTHING!!!
Google Drive Mac App Download
COSTLY and CRAPPY!!! Google Drive – The software backup and sync sucks, the online browsing sucks they seem to have forgotten what a file browser looks like and works. If you have a lot of files to sync the software will crash and you have to keep constantly re-starting it till it works again, this is after it does a re-scan of all the files, and sometimes it crashes on that. It’s completely unusable for me now. Worst of all no.ignore file processing. I even tried to write my own software using the google drive api and that has been built in a way that makes it terrible to use. 1000 query results on your files at a time, throttled, meaning it would take a considerable amount of time to just get a dir structure of my data HD.
So I tried onedrive, worse. You can’t select which folders you want to sync they must be placed inside the onedrive folder, just not practical and again doesn’t support.ignore files. However the online experience is the best of the 2 (google & dropbox).
So I tried dropbox, worst of all. And just like onedrive you can only sync what is inside the dropbox folder. To sum it up, Google, Microsoft and DropBox have the resource to build a decent cloud sync service but choose not to. Google has known for a long time (years) their software crashes all the time and there is no fix. Microsoft and Dropbox know that their users want to be able to select folders to sync and not put them in the share folder setup with their software but they dont care (very old request since their services were released).
And all 3 don’t care about the.ignore feature everyone has been requesting for god knows how many years (same as github.gitignore). If google drive had this feature it would have cut 100,000s of files out of my cloud sync. Imagine that for everyone using it. None of them are any good. If you have too many small files to sync use Google Drive with backup and sync it will work till you have too many files and then one day for no reason it will start to crash for no reason and when you google the error code you will be in there with 1000s of others with no answer.
If however you don’t need to select specific folders to cloud sync I would recommend Microsofts OneDrive, however note the price plans are rubbish. I nearly bought the 1TB but they sell office 365 with it, I’m fine with my free libre office and / or open office and gmail.