A lot of web apps, including the web interface for Apple's iCloud Drive, ignore this capability, so you get the browser's menu instead of the app's. PCMag, PCMag.com and PC Magazine are among the federally registered trademarks of Ziff Davis, LLC and may not be used by third parties without explicit permission. More. With the apps installed, you get access to the most recent versions of all your files. Accessing Google Drive is done through your Google account. Sign up for What's New Now to get our top stories delivered to your inbox every morning. Clear cache. Both also integrate the Google and Microsoft editors within their services, even letting you create, for example, a new Microsoft Word doc from a menu option. Other computers that you use will have their own folders. The files are always safe, no fear of deleting or lost due to computer crash or accidental deletion. Using more than one service gives you options like compartmentalizing your home and work files or keeping photos separate from documents. If you are a power user of Office apps, there may be features you'd like to see added to Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, such as convenient right-click mini toolbar formatting options, and some advanced spreadsheet functions, but the Google apps include enough tools to get most jobs done. For deep dives into Google's online productivity suite, read our review of Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Multimedia features aren't all that robust. OneDrive inches past Google Drive's PCMag rating thanks to its Files On-Demand, more robust productivity apps (Office is hard to beat), and better sharing options. Flag any particular issues you may encounter and Softonic will address those concerns as soon as possible. Over 100,000,000 people already installed AVG’s antivirus mobile security apps. If you install Backup and Sync or File Stream (see below) Google Drive appears just like a local folder. The most popular versions of the this tool are 1.18, 1.17 and 1.16. We had a PDF with a unique string of text in the file, but not in the file name, and when we searched for it, Google Drive delivered the right result almost instantly. The feature is a plus, but it's somewhat quirky, and it doesn't yet turn Drive into a full backup utility. Dropbox and OneDrive also integrate with third-party services, but Google Drive integrates with everything. it has been running seamlessly on my system. Once documents are stored there, you can share them, collaborate with others, and edit and create new things using third-party applications. The name and logo of Softonic are registered trademarks of SOFTONIC INTERNATIONAL S.A. On the right are buttons for sharing, getting a link to, deleting, previewing, and seeing information about a selected file. Then there's the issue of having a file open at the same time in both locations—which version edits should be saved? For more storage, you can upgrade to Google One, which has a number of monthly subscriptions available, although there aren’t many smaller options. You can, however, export these files to more-standard formats. Something’s gone terribly wrong.Try this instead, Protect files with banking-level encryption. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. ... Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 10 and can function on 32 or 64-bit systems. There are some secrets to getting the most out of Google Drive and its companion apps, Google Photos, Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Google Drive now even supports Microsoft Office revisions mode. Our team performs checks each time a new file is uploaded and periodically reviews files to confirm or update their status. In the worst-case scenario, you’ll need to remove your antivirus and check if that solves the problem. Download for Free Now! Note that Google Photos no longer gets a folder in Drive—it's completely separate now, except for existing photos you uploaded before Google made this change. These files do not remain as a static snapshot and are updated when you make changes. Resilio Sync (formerly BitTorrent Sync) keeps your data off the cloud, instead using direct P2P connections. You can also access your files from Google Drive by syncing them to your computer ou can sync selected folders to your desktop, this means you can access those documents offline. Google Drive is much more than just a cloud-based storage and syncing service with an excellent free storage plan. Download Google Drive for free. Google Drive is one of the most popular storage tools to sync documents across devices. There are many other third-party apps that you can connect with Drive to enhance its capabilities. Without slowing down your Android or draining your battery. Google Drive cleverly sidesteps these issues by keeping separate folders for each machine, all accessible from the browser. The Windows application to sync files lets you set your preferences to have whatever you want moving between your PC and your Google Drive storage. Google Drive's closest competitor is Microsoft OneDrive. It can be used to collaborate and share with friends and colleagues, but you may find uploads are slow. Disable Antivirus and Firewall. The first is self-explanatory; Suggesting puts collaborators' changes in brackets, which the document owner can accept or not. When downloading large files from Google Drive, a single GET request is not sufficient. The snipped does not use gdrive, nor the Google Drive API.It uses the requests module.. Two other big names in online file syncing service space, Box and Dropbox, both offer their own document types for collaboration: Box with Note and Dropbox with Paper. CertainSafe Digital Safety Deposit Box is online storage that's all about encryption, privacy, and security. Furthermore, it's free—unless you need to store more than 15GB worth of data; for more on paid plans, see the Google One Pricing section below. This could benefit consumers, too, as OneDrive's Files On Demand feature shows, so I'd like to see the company add that feature to Backup & Sync; OneDrive offers; all OneDrive users, in comparison, can take advantage of its Files on Demand feature. Students with Managed Apple ID accounts from their schools get a sweeter deal: a free 200GB. Our expert industry analysis and practical solutions help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology. You can sync and upload files from your desktop and manage them in this application. See our full analysis of Backup & Sync in the section dedicated to it below. Further, you can always retrieve it any place, anywhere. This approach makes it somewhat of an archiving service, that is, a repository for your entire history of file contents. Also note that when we tried to add the Windows PC's Programs folder, a message popped up saying something went wrong. Take Bitdefender’s award-winning antivirus protection with you! That's significant, since it means that Google Drive cannot be used as a full-system online backup service the way Acronis True Image, Carbonite, IDrive, and SOS Online Backup can. OCR also works in Google Drive on PDFs. When viewing your files on Google Drive, anything that has come from your PC is labeled in a specific folder, so it is easy to find your documents. It now calls them folders, like everybody else does. In the past, syncing services that let you specify any folder or file on your system—the way Microsoft's earlier Mesh product did—created confusion, because you have to map that folder to a folder on the other synced computers, which could get complicated if you have several computers. It’s highly probable this software program is malicious or contains unwanted bundled software. On your PC it can be used to keep your photos, calendars, and emails up to date. Some upload attempts kicked an error message, but tapping the Retry All button remedied that issue. ease of use and performance are excellent. You can still use Drive as a special synced folder of its own, but the ability to designate folders anywhere on the computer's file system is a plus. When it comes to sharing documents between your smartphone or tablet and your PC, there are different services that will suit you. A recent update added drag-and-drop functionality to search results, letting you drag a result file to a folder on the left. Google Drive - Back up files from your computer, camera, or SD cards to the cloud. Other services like Box, Dropbox, iCloud, and OneDrive stick with keeping synced files in a set folder with as many subfolders as you like. Keep your personal data safe with App Lock, Photo Vault, Wi-Fi Security Scan, and App Permissions advisor. The Google Drive app, which is called Backup and Sync, allows you to manage the files in Google Drive and on your PC. But neither can match the integration and richness of productivity apps offered by Google's and Microsoft's cloud services. A convenience is that you can drag and drop files from your computer onto any open folder in the browser. Google Drive is so chock-full of appealing features that you're missing out if you don't use it. This integration allows you to edit your photos, design graphical content, convert files, and much more. Divide the download into smaller parts. This can quickly fill up if you are storing large files, or using it with many different apps. Instead, it keeps your documents safe in separate storage. According to research, the social reward of a having something nice said to you, or about you, could enhance your motor skills and improve performance. We have scanned the file and URLs associated with this software program in more than 50 of the world's leading antivirus services; no possible threat has been detected. Google Drive is truly impressive in how it can help you store, back up, create, and even edit files, whether you work solo or as part of a team. You can upload photos to regular Drive folders or use the Google Photos product. One great benefit of Drive is that it saves every edited version of files you store in it. When you collaborate, the collaborators' names appear when they're editing a document you're also working on. (Note: SugarSync is owned by j2 Global, the parent company of Ziff Davis, the owner, and publisher of PCMag.com.). You can view a document in three different modes: Editing, Suggesting, and Viewing. The safest place. The best to store files and photos in web. There are similar applications that have some of the same features as Google Drive. One useful storage and synchronization tool is Dropbox. It is important to note the distinction between backing up your whole PC and creating a restore point for data recovery. It means a benign program is wrongfully flagged as malicious due to an overly broad detection signature or algorithm used in an antivirus program. This application gives you 2GB of free storage. When you finish working on the file at home, you can rest assured that all your work shows up on your office computer in the morning. I have been using it since few years. In some cases, you might even have to disable your antivirus entirely. Despite its wealth of tools and slick operation, there are still a couple things we'd like to see improved in Google Drive. Google Drive offers two different desktop utilities for syncing: Backup & Sync for consumers, and File Stream for business G Suite users. Finally, you could encrypt your data before sending it up to the cloud and use any of the services, but that takes away a good deal of their convenience. Keep an eye on your inbox! It has a big advantage over Backup & Sync, as mentioned earlier: It lets you specify files and folders that you don't want downloaded to the local computer's storage. Just about every web service you can think of—from Slack to HelloFax to the Pixlr online photo editor—can integrate with Google Drive. Open up Google Drive and take a look at My Drive. As well as integrating well with Office365, it gives you remote access to your PC from another PC using a code. It works within your My Documents folder, which means adding files is incredibly straightforward. Why? If Google Drive isn’t blocked by your antivirus, you can try disabling certain antivirus features and check if that helps. While Microsoft offers richer productivity apps and better sharing options for free users, Google offers more initial free storage. Compatibility is rarely an issue with Google Drive: You can upload files, convert them to Google's file format to edit them online—or create new documents, spreadsheets, and slide presentations in the Web interface—and export the finished products to standard file formats, such as .doc, .rtf, .pdf, and so on. Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera, or Safari: Which Browser Is Best? For iPhone users, it may make sense to use iCloud. We installed Backup & Sync on a Windows laptop and an iMac for testing. Clean up any left over install/drive folders/files Delete the folder and all subfolders found here: C:\Program Files\Google\Drive Depending on where the installation failed, this may not be present For example, you can't use online versions to edit documents that include tracking, and there's no search in the iCloud Drive web client. Installing Backup & Sync resembles installing Chrome, with the same "on your marks, get set, go" messages during installation. Ben holds a degree in New Media and Digital Design from Fordham University at Lincoln Center, where he served as the Editor-in-Chief of The Observer, the student-run newspaper. You can add any folders on the computer, except for the C: Drive or This PC folders. File Stream doesn't share the consumer product's ability to specify files anywhere on the system for backup, however. Download USB Drive Antivirus for Windows to protect your PC from USB viruses and remove suspicious autorun.inf files. Consumers can specify any folder on the computer for backup, and businesses can save space by not duplicating files on local storage. Viewing simply shows the final edited document. Watch Out, It's Probably Malware, These Online Behaviors Will Stick Around After the Pandemic, Intel to Build Chips for Other Companies With New Foundry Business, Read Great Stories Offline on Your Favorite, How to Free Up Space on Your iPhone or iPad, How to Save Money on Your Cell Phone Bill, How to Find Free Tools to Optimize Your Small Business, How to Get Started With Project Management, Desktop Clients: Backup & Sync and File Stream, secrets to getting the most out of Google Drive, Read CertainSafe Digital Safety Deposit Box Review, The Best Cloud Storage and File-Sharing Services for 2021. You can create subfolders to your heart's content, too. Integrations with third-party services are another strength of Google Drive. Your subscription has been confirmed. Gmail messages (including spam) and all email attachments, however, do count against your limit. True online backup runs scheduled backups and provides full system restore capability. How it works With Drive for desktop, you stream your Drive files directly from the cloud to your Mac or PC, freeing up disk space and network bandwidth. There are also buttons for Settings and switching between list and thumbnail view. These little gems really can sustain a person. Files don’t just move from your PC to your cloud storage. This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. You receive 15GB of storage for free with your account, and the Drive app uses this storage. But the same could be said for OneDrive, Dropbox, and Box. One potential concern about Google Drive is privacy. Google One plans also get one-tap access to support experts and the ability to share accounts with up to five family members. The Computers tab showed both. Just be careful not to lose your encryption password, or your data will be gone for good. For a while, Google tried using the name Google Drive to mean the productivity apps—Docs and the rest. Google collects information from your online activity to serve you targeted ads. Google Drive, OneDrive, and Apple iCloud Drive also act like file-syncing services such as Dropbox and SugarSync. Microsoft claims that it doesn't do this, but if privacy is paramount for you, we suggest sticking with a file-syncing service that puts anonymity first. Color-coding throughout also helps differentiate where each user's cursor is within the file when multiple people are making changes at once. These include SpiderOakONE (which emphasizes privacy) and SOS Online Backup. In Softonic we scan all the files hosted on our platform to assess and avoid any potential harm for your device. Google Drive currently offers a generous 15GB of free storage. Deploy Google Drive for desktop to your organization for a quick and easy way for you and your users to access your Drive files from your computer. Drive's local application for consumers is Backup & Sync, which lets you sync almost any file or folder on a computer, no matter where it lives in your folder structure. It provides up to 25GB of free storage online, and you can select which folders you want to sync. The latest version of Google Drive Backup and Sync includes some bug fixes and performance improvements to the overall system. Download Google Drive - Backup and Sync for Windows now from Softonic: 100% safe and virus free. It can be accessed in two ways from your Windows PC. Dropbox is among the stingier services when it comes to free storage, only offering 2GB, while Box is one of the more generous, with 10GB. Other similar apps that use built-in OCR include Office Lens, Adobe Scan, Evernote, and OneNote, though you have to be a paid Adobe or Evernote user to get the OCR in PDFs (OCR for images works for free users). More, Automatically back up and recover everything on your computer, Convenient Space to Store Your Files and Memories. That means that if you work on a file from the office, and then go home and want to pick up where you left off, you can do so without having to download the file, email it to yourself, or load it from a USB key. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product or service, we may be paid a fee by that merchant. For $1.99-per-month you get 100GB, a $6.99-per-month Microsoft 365 Personal account gets you 1TB, and the $9.99-per-month Microsoft 365 Family plan gets you 6TB (1TB each for up to six users). Several online backup services let you choose an encryption key that's in your possession alone, so that not even the company's employees can decrypt your files. When it comes to deleting files, Backup & Sync offers three settings: You can tell it to delete the file everywhere, only on the current machine, or prompt you for what to do. Strangely, the webpage is not responsive like OneDrive's. He previously covered services and software for ExtremeTech.com. Here are some alternatives that give you storage or syncing options. We are impressed, however, that Google Drive implements right-click context menus in its web interface (as does OneDrive). Resizing to a narrower page cuts off some interface features. The File Stream utility, exclusively for G Suite users, is very similar to Backup & Sync: It creates a local-looking folder on the computer to access and save your files. Before that he worked on PC Magazine's Solutions section, which covered programming techniques as well as tips on using popular office software. The display of third-party trademarks and trade names on this site does not necessarily indicate any affiliation or the endorsement of PCMag. Keep in mind that not everything counts towards your Google Drive storage limits. He has previously written for Laptop Mag, Neowin.net, and Tom's Guide. Simply install on your Android and it’s ready to go—nothing to configure. Apple lets you share storage from 200GB and 2TB plans with up to six family members. The first way is through your browser, which will display your files and allow you to view and rearrange them. Using the desktop app you can choose to back up selected files from your PC. Bitdefender's Antivirus Free is a powerful and fast solution that uses in-the-cloud scanning technology to arm your Android device with the very latest industry leading virus detection. Copyright SOFTONIC INTERNATIONAL S.A. © 1997-2021 - All rights reserved. Despite the nomenclature of the Backup & Sync desktop app, we don't consider Google Drive, strictly speaking, to be an online backup solution.