Google Drive is a web-based storage resolution by Google. It means that you can retailer and sync knowledge throughout your units with its 15 GB of free space for storing, whereas its integration with Google Docs for Mac provides your pals or coworkers entry to the recordsdata or folders you designate for sharing.
There’s an official Google Drive app for Mac too — you’ll be able to obtain it at https://www.google.com/drive/obtain/. The app is free and you may anticipate to put in it and have it operating very quickly and little effort.
Be aware that Google’s Backup & Sync has been changed with Drive for desktop, as per the corporate’s official help web page.
How To Set Up And Use Google Drive For Mac?
With Google Drive, you’ll be able to create and edit paperwork on-line. However in case you depend on Drive for recordsdata backup and sync, it’s far more handy to make use of the app. To begin utilizing Google Drive on Mac, the very first thing you want is a Google Drive account.
How one can create a Google Drive account?
When you’ve got an account on any of Google companies, like Gmail, YouTube, or Google Play, then you definately really have already got a Google Drive account.
Merely log in to a Google Drive web site or app together with your current credentials. Or create a Google account at no cost by following these steps:
- Go to google.com/drive and click on on the blue Go to Google Drive button
- Click on Create Account
- Comply with the onscreen directions to create a brand new Google account (this may also function your new Gmail e-mail tackle)
How one can set up Google Drive for Mac?
Putting in Google Drive app in your Mac desktop solely takes a couple of steps, so let’s rapidly undergo them collectively.
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First, go to https://www.google.com/drive/d… and click on the Obtain Drive for desktop button.
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Subsequent, discover GoogleDrive.dmg in your Downloads folder and open it.
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You’ll be prompted to put in the Google Drive app, so undergo the steps by first opening GoogleDrive.pkg, then confirming the set up within the set up window (the app will let you understand how a lot house it would take up in your disk, which in our case was 421.3 MB).
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Lastly, you’ll be prompted to sign up to Google Drive together with your Google account.
When you’ve signed in, the app will routinely sync together with your account and be prepared to be used.
How one can sync Google Drive on Mac for the primary time?
Your Google Drive app in your Mac desktop syncs together with your account routinely, however while you first begin utilizing it, you’ll must go to preferences and choose one of many two sorts of syncing your recordsdata:
You may both retailer your entire recordsdata on the cloud and solely make choose objects out there offline, i.e. stream recordsdata, or it can save you all of your recordsdata each on the Google Drive and your laptop, i.e. mirror recordsdata.
You may change your syncing kind at any second in Google Drive preferences.
How do I do know which manner of syncing to decide on in Google Drive on Mac?
In case you are not sure which syncing kind to pick out on your Google Drive on Mac app, we’re right here that will help you out.
It’s really very straightforward to make the selection as soon as you realize all the professionals and cons of every syncing choice.
The primary professional of stream recordsdata syncing is that a lot much less house is used in your Mac’s onerous drive as many of the recordsdata are saved within the cloud. You continue to have easy accessibility to all of the recordsdata and may work with them in your Mac. The primary con of this syncing kind is the necessity for web entry to make use of the recordsdata you haven’t made out there on-line.
Mirror sync is the other of that — your recordsdata are saved each in your laptop and Google’s cloud storage, can be found offline whatever the high quality of your web connection, however they take up double the house since they’re saved each within the cloud and in your machine.
In a nutshell:
- With stream sync, recordsdata take up much less house however you want web for entry;
- With mirror sync, recordsdata take up more room however you don’t want web to make use of them.
Why you may want to make use of Google Drive app on Mac
Google Drive is a handy software for saving your recordsdata in a cloud storage that’s connected to your Google account.
These are just some of the the explanation why you may need to apply it to your Mac:
- You need the comfort of getting access to your full Google Drive in a folder in Finder.
- You wish to rapidly sync between native and cloud recordsdata.
- You have to change recordsdata’ statuses from “out there offline” to “on-line solely” often.
- You favor to have direct entry to your Google Drive recordsdata saved to a number of Google accounts.
How one can use Google Drive menu bar icon
Google Drive menu bar icon permits you fast entry to your Google Drive exercise, notifications, and app preferences.
In Google Drive Preferences, you’ll be able to add folders to again up, change whether or not you need your file sync to be stream or mirror (we’ve defined the distinction earlier within the publish), and discover your My Drive folder in Finder.
And in case you really feel peeved about having yet one more icon in your menu bar, your menu bar is a large number with all of the icons you have already got, otherwise you need extra construction to the best way it seems, there’s an awesome resolution for that.
Bartender is a software on your menu bar icons. It’s beloved by many Mac customers for its simplicity and comfort, and it turns your menu bar into a spot tailor-made exactly to your each day wants. Use Bartender to customise your Mac’s menu bar, select which apps keep seen and which disguise within the collapsible Bartender bar.
Reorder your icons, add spacers, view any modifications in actual time as Bartender routinely shows the icons for apps which are updating, syncing, and many others. Use the keyboard for navigation, search your menu objects, and extra on this useful app.
How one can use Google Drive on Mac?
Now that your Google Drive setup is full, you may have entry to this extra storage so that you can do as you want. Nevertheless, among the best makes use of can be to hyperlink your Google Drive to a number of units — for simple entry from all of them.
So as to add your recordsdata to your Google Drive, you not must open it in your browser and add. You may merely drag and drop recordsdata onto the My Drive folder in your Mac:
In case you are utilizing the stream sync on your Google Drive recordsdata, you can also make some out there offline proper within the My Drive folder in Finder:
Two-finger click on on the file you need to change the standing for, go to Offline entry choice within the dropdown menu and click on Obtainable offline to make your file out there offline and On-line solely to reverse. Be aware that the On-line solely choice will assist you save disk house in your Mac.
You may simply spot which recordsdata and folders can be found offline by the respective labels on every in your My Drive folder in Finder:
You may as well create new folders, change sharing settings for recordsdata and folders, copy hyperlink to the file or folder to clipboard, and extra.
Additionally keep in mind that Google Drive permits you to create and work with others on paperwork in Google’s personal variations of Phrase, Excel, and PowerPoint in real-time (referred to as Docs, Sheets, and Slides respectively). To allow collaboration on a Google Docs file, merely faucet on Share within the high proper nook and enter the names or e-mail addresses of the folks you want to have interaction.
Extra ideas for making Google Drive higher
As handy as Google Drive is, folks usually use a couple of service for his or her private {and professional} knowledge storage. Some fashionable options embrace Apple’s iCloud, Microsoft’s OneDrive, and Dropbox. Utilizing a mixture of cloud-based storages will increase your Mac’s disk house to being just about limitless, so long as you may have an energetic web connection. However in fact, managing completely different cloud accounts can flip into fairly a hustle.
Fortunately, there are apps like CloudMounter that will let you use all of your storage options in a single place, connecting them to your Mac as in the event that they had been your common exterior drives.
This trick permits you to take care of cloud knowledge in the identical method as you’d with native one, and even transfer recordsdata between the clouds. One other nice good thing about utilizing CloudMounter is the newest encryption algorithm that ensures the safety of your cloud recordsdata. Plus, it permits encrypting delicate knowledge on the cloud and doesn’t share your login information with any third events.
CloudMounter works completely with all main cloud companies and will very properly turn out to be your final cloud supervisor in case you’re consistently coping with storage points or really feel there’s not sufficient free house in your Mac’s SSD.
Not even a bit much less important when coping with a great deal of knowledge is ensuring you may have a very good backup of a very powerful recordsdata. Get Backup Professional is a chic backup app only for that.
Get Backup Professional is quick, dependable, and affords a mixture of 4 completely different backup strategies: easy copy, clone, incremental, and versioned. With this app, you’ll be able to again up folders or recordsdata that you just assume are necessary, lower the scale of archives as much as 60% by conducting compressed backups, effortlessly migrate knowledge to a brand new disk with bootable backups through cloning, and schedule Stealth mode backups — with Get Backup Professional routinely closing as soon as all scheduled processes are completed.
It goes with out saying that cloud storage encourages collaboration and file sharing. Should you work with completely different recordsdata on-line and sometimes must share hyperlinks, Dropshare needs to be your app of alternative for quick and safe file change.
Dropshare is a platform that works brilliantly together with your favourite cloud companies and allows you to add recordsdata in bulk with its straightforward drag & drop performance, in addition to securely share recordsdata, paperwork, and pictures with password-protected expiring obtain hyperlinks, and even set your personal keyboard shortcuts to finish routine duties quicker.
Should you’re nonetheless asking your self tips on how to use Google Drive — 15 GB of free space for storing, glorious collaboration options, and skill to entry your recordsdata from any of your units will certainly offer you a lot of concepts on tips on how to profit from it. With clouds come potentialities, however you‘re the one who actually decides what’s Google Drive going to be in your Mac.
Better of all, yow will discover CloudMounter, Get Backup Professional, and Dropshare talked about above on a free 7-day trial by means of Setapp, a platform of greater than 240 helpful Mac utilities that would change the best way you’re employed daily. Prepared for motion on cloud Google?
