Cameron Summerson is ex-Editor-in-Chief of Review Geek and served as an Editorial Advisor for How-To Geek và LifeSavvy. He covered technology for a decade & wrote over 4,000 articles and hundreds of product reviews in that time. He’s been published in print magazines và quoted as a điện thoại cảm ứng expert in the new york Times. Read more...
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Google has been doing its part to make sure everyone has a backup of important data, và it recently released a new tool for Windows and Mac users to take that redundancy to lớn the next level. Appropriately named Backup và Sync, it’s a quick và effective tool lớn store your important files in the cloud.
Backup và Sync Replaces Google Drive và Google Photos Uploader
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Before we get into it, let’s first talk a little bit about what Backup & Sync actually is. If you’re a heavy Google user, you’re probably already aware of Google’s other sync tools: Google Drive và Google Photos Uploader. Those have both now been rolled into Backup và Sync, so you can control all of your files, videos, images, and more from one app. This is where you’ll control which folders from your Drive are synced to và from your PC or Mac, as well as specifying which image folders should get backed up to your Photos library.
Google Drive is really the chip core of the Backup và Sync tool, so if you never used the Drive ứng dụng then a bit of explanation may be in order. Essentially, this new tool will allow you to lớn sync your Google Drive cloud storage with your computer—be that the entire Drive or just specific files and folders. These are then treated as local files on the computer, so your important stuff is always up lớn date on every computer you own (and in the cloud).
The only exception here are Google Docs files (Sheets, Docs, Slides)—those are still online-only, as Backup và Sync will not tải về them for offline access. It will, however, put icons in the Google Drive thư mục so you can double-click them as if they were normal documents (you’ll just need an mạng internet connection khổng lồ view and edit them.)
Backup & Sync also adds one more tool to lớn the equation: the option khổng lồ back up specific folders from your PC or Mac to your Google Drive. For example, I use Google Drive to store almost everything, so it’s accessible from all of my other device. But the screenshots folder on my Windows machine isn’t in my Drive folder—it’s in my PC’s Pictures folder. With Backup and Sync, I can then access thư mục on any of my other devices, any time.
Sound awesome? It is. Here’s how to lớn set it up & get everything synced.
Step One: tải về and Install Backup và Sync
Naturally, the first thing you’ll need to do is actually tải về the Backup và Sync tool. Make sure to lớn grab the appropriate tải về for your device (Mac or PC). If you already have Google Drive installed, don’t worry—this tool will automatically replace it, no uninstallation necessary.
It should tải về pretty quickly, và you’ll just need to launch the installer when it’s finished. If you’re using Google Chrome (as you should be), just click the download button at the bottom of the page.
A few seconds later, Backup and Sync will be installed. When it was finished, mine told me to restart my computer for reasons unknown khổng lồ me—I didn’t bởi vì it, và everything still worked fine. Take that, Google.
If you previously had the Google Drive ứng dụng installed, Backup and Sync should automatically log in to your Google Account. If not, you’ll need to lớn log in. After that, a quick splash screen will let you know what the tiện ích is all about: backing up your stuff. Click “Got it” to move into the app.
Step Two: Choose Which Folders Will Get Synced from Google Drive
The Backup & Sync tool is split up into two main sections:
Google Drive: This performs the same function as the original Google Drive app. You choose what folders khổng lồ sync from your Google Drive cloud storage, và they’ll appear in a Google Drive folder on your PC. Anything you put into that folder will also sync khổng lồ Google Drive.My Computer: This part is new, & allows you to lớn sync files between your computer và Drive without putting them in the dedicated Google Drive folder. Just pick the folders from your computer you want to lớn sync, and they’ll sync to your cloud storage (though they’ll appear in a separate section of the Google Drive interface, rather than with all your other Drive files.)Let’s start with the Google Drive section first—it’s second in the list, but it’s much simpler & will be familiar to lớn anyone who’s used Google Drive in the past.
You have a few specific options in this menu. You can:
Sync My Drive lớn this Computer: Use this option to lớn enable/disable syncing your Google Drive to lớn your computer.Sync Everything in my Drive: Literally syncs the entire contents of your Google Drive to your computer.Sync Only These Folders: Allows you to lớn specify which folders lớn sync from Drive to lớn your computer.These are really straightforward—just choose what you’d like to sync and be done with it.
Step Three: Choose Other Folders On You PC to Sync
Next, let’s look at the My Computer section, where you can select other folders on your PC to lớn sync. There are a few options already available here: Desktop, Documents, và Pictures. You can simply tick the box next to the option lớn completely back up everything from that location to your Google Drive. Simple.
But if you’d like to get a little more granular và only back up a certain folder, you can bởi this by clicking the “Choose Folder” option. Just navigate lớn the folder you’d lượt thích to back up, và click “Select Folder.” That’s all there is khổng lồ it.
NOTE: Files you sync from outsdie your Drive folder won’t show up in Drive alongside all your other files. To access those files, head to Google Drive on the web and click on “My Computers” in the left menu. This option is also available in the Drive thiết bị di động apps.
If you want a file or folder to show up under “My Drive”, you’ll need khổng lồ sync it the old-fashioned way: by putting it inside the Google Drive folder on your PC.
Step Four: Tweak Your Photo Uploading Settings
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Below the folder options in the “My Computer” section, you can also specify how you’d lượt thích to back up images (if you choose to lớn back up images from your PC, of course): Original Quality, which will take up space in your Drive, or High Quality, which won’t take up any space in your Drive. The latter uses intelligent compression algorithms khổng lồ shrink the size of the image without reducing quality, the same as it does in the Google Photos phầm mềm on Android và iOS devices.
You can also specify how you’d lượt thích to control delete options: Remove Items Everywhere, Don’t Remove Items Everywhere, or Ask Me Before Removing Items Everywhere. The last option is phối as the default, which really makes the most sense anyway. Feel không tính tiền to change this according to your specific needs.
Lastly, you can tick the box in the Google Photos section to automatically scan your computer for new pictures & upload them khổng lồ Google Photos. There’s also a small option at the bottom labeled “USB Devices & SD Cards,” which you can use khổng lồ automatically upload files from your digital camera or USB drives if you’d like. Just plug in the drive or card & specify what you’d like to bởi with it.
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A Few Additional Notes about Backup and Sync
That’s really all there is to Backup and Sync, but there are a couple of other things worth mentioning:
You can rename your computer by clicking on the “My Computer” (or similar) text at the đứng đầu of the “My Computer” page & giving it a specific name.You can easily tăng cấp your Drive storage or disconnect your trương mục from the “Settings” tab.System startup rules, file sync icon, và right click settings can also be modified on the Settings tab.Backup và Sync’s network activity can be restricted in the “Network Settings” section of the Settings tab. Proxies can be specific, & download/upload rates capped if need be.The Backup và Sync tool will live in your computer’s system tray as long as it’s running. Lớn access its settings, just click its icon in the tray, click the three-dot thực đơn in the upper right corner, và choose “Preferences.”That’s pretty much it, really. It’s a simple tool.
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