It syncs the Google Drive folder in your home folder with your online Google Drive storage.Īll files and folders or just some of them can be synced, just like before. I will cover the second item first because there is little to say about it. Open the preferences and there is a sidebar with three sections - your computer, Google Drive and Settings. They can be opened at any time by clicking the menu bar icon and then clicking the three dots in the panel that is displayed. The alias is probably there for compatibility in case you or an app tries to run Google Drive.Ī new cloud icon is added to the menu bar and on its first run it prompts you to open the preferences. Hang on a minute, what if you already have Google Drive on your Mac? This is an obvious scenario and it is nice to see that Backup and Sync copes well with it.Īfter dragging Backup and Sync to the Applications folder and starting it, it deleted Google Drive and replaced the app with an alias to start Backup and Sync. dmg file and drag the app to the Applications folder.

Open Safari and go to /drive/download then click the button to download it. This does everything Drive did and a whole lot more.

Now it has been replaced by a more powerful laternative called Backup adn Sync.

Google Drive has been on the Mac for years and it has been doing a good job of syncing the Google Drive folder on the Mac with the same folder on other computers and online. Unlike iCloud, Google Drive runs on macOS and Windows, so you can sync between operating systems, such as between PCs and Macs. That is only part of it and syncing files and folders between different computers makes them available no matter which computer you work on. If anything happens to the Mac, you can still access your files online using a web browser. Online storage is not simply useful, it is essential for many people and it is great to have files and backups in online storage. There are new features in the updated app that make the online storage even more useful than before. If you use Google Drive on a Mac, here’s how to upgrade it to Google Backup and Sync.

Google drive download backup and sync