Safely store and share your photos, videos, files and more in the cloud. Your first 15 GB of storage are free with a Google account. Google Backup & Sync is a program for your computer, Windows or Mac. It is a simple program that focuses on getting files from your computer to your storage areas in Google Drive and Google Photos. It is a nifty little program that can perform a backup service and save important files and media to your Google Drive storage space. Click the Backup and Sync icon from the System Tray. Then click the three-dot menu to continue. In the pop-up menu, click Quit Backup and Sync to continue. After that, Google Backup and Sync service will be stopped.
With a short delay, Google announced the new Backup and Sync tool a few days ago. This tool allows you to easily back up the files and photos you have on your PC by sending them to the cloud — Google Drive and Photos. That way, your important documents and vacation images will always be safe, even if your computer stops working for whatever reason.
In this post, we explain exactly how to set up and use Google’s new backup tool, step by step. Without any further delay, let’s get started.
- Click at 'Google's Backup and Sync' menu and choose Preferences to modify the app's settings (modify folder selections, Startup rules, etc.) to Add New Account or to Quit Backup and Sync. – After backup, you can access your Google Drive files from any device after login with your Google account.
- Open Google Backup and Sync web page, login your account. Then click + New button - File Upload or Folder Upload to sync files to Google Drive manually. Way 2: Google Drive Folder You could Drag and Drop files or folders to Google Drive folder on the desktop.
Step 1: Download Backup and Sync
To download the app, just visit Drive’s website via the button below, click on the “Download Backup and Sync” button, and then on “Agree and download” once the Terms of Service window pops up. When the download is completed, open the “installbackupandsync.exe file”, follow the instructions on the screen, and the app will be installed on your computer in no time. Then just restart your computer if asked to do so, and you’re good to go.
Step 2: Sign in and select the folders you want to back up
Now that the Backup and Sync tool is installed on your computer, it’s time to set it up. When you launch the app, the first thing you’ll have to do is sign in to your Google account. After that, the next step is to simply select the folders on your computer that you want to continually back up to Drive. What this means is that all the files in the selected folders will be moved to the cloud right away. And as soon as you add a new file to one of the folders, it will be moved to Drive automatically.
You can choose to back up only a few folders you have on your computer or all of them, essentially backing up your entire computer. However, it’s worth pointing out that your Google account only has 15 GB of free storage, which is shared between Photos, Gmail, and Drive. If you need more space, you can upgrade for as low as $1.99 per month, which gets you 100 GB of storage.
You can also back up data from a smartphone, camera, SD card, or other devices. Just plug a phone or camera into your computer, click on the “USB devices & SD cards” at the bottom, and select the files you want to upload to the cloud from your connected device.
Step 3: Change general settings
Once you have selected the folders you want to back up to Drive, there are a couple of settings you should take a closer look at to make sure the tool works just the way you want it to.
Photo and video upload size: As the name suggests, you can choose the upload size of videos and images. You have two options: to upload them in their original size or in what Google calls “High quality”. If you opt for the first option, the images and videos you upload will count against your storage. The second option is free, which means that the content uploaded online won’t count against the storage of your Google account. However, keep in mind that in this case photos and videos will be compressed to save space. If a photo is larger than 16 MP, it will be resized to 16 MP, while videos higher than 1080p will be resized to 1080p.
Removing items: This basically allows you to choose how Backup and Sync deletes files. There are three options available, which are described below.
- Remove items everywhere: When you delete something on your computer, it will also automatically be deleted on Drive. It works the other way around as well, meaning that if you delete a file on Drive it will be deleted on your computer.
- Don’t remove items everywhere: When you delete something on your computer, it will stay on Drive, and vice versa.
- Ask me before removing items everywhere: When you delete something on your computer, Backup and Sync will ask if you want to delete it on Drive as well. This also works the other way around.
Google Photos: If you enable this setting by checking the box, images and videos located in the folders you selected in step two will automatically be uploaded to Google Photos. If you leave it unchecked, the images will only be uploaded to Drive and won’t show up in your Google Photos account. However, there’s an option in Google Photo’s settings that, when enabled, actually allows you to view Google Drive images and videos in your Photos library (see image below).
Other settings: There are a few other settings available under the Google Drive and Settings tabs on the left side. These allow you to choose whether or not Backup and Sync will open when you turn on your computer, a warning will show up when you remove items from a shared folder, and more.
Step 4: View your backed up files
Viewing the files you have backed up to the cloud is easy. All you have to do is visit the Google Drive website and click on the “Computers” tab on the left side. If you have backed up files from more than one computer, you’ll see a different folder for each one. Just open up the one you want and you’re good to go.
Final thoughts
As you can see, using Google’s Backup and Sync is quite easy. The main thing is just to select the folders you want to continually back up to Drive and play around with the settings to get the tool working the way you want it to. Once it’s set up, you don’t really have to do anything else, as Backup and Sync will do all the heavy lifting for you.
Have you used the Backup and Sync tool? Let us know in the comments below.
Quick Navigation:
What Is Google Backup and Sync?
Google Backup and Sync is a tool published by Google in late June, 2017, aiming to synchronize files between online Google Drive and local desktop folder. This folder will be created once the sync task is started. And, this is a two-way sync: changes made to local desktop folder will be synchronized to network Google Drive and differences happening in online Google Drive files will also be mirrored to local storage.
On the one hand, it safely backup your files. “Upload and store files from any folder on your computer, camera, and SD cards in the cloud. You can find your content on any phone, tablet, or computer using Google Drive, and your photos and videos in Google Photos.”
On the other hand, it syncs Google Drive with your computer, so you can access Google Drive files even when you are offline.
How to Use Google Backup and Sync App to Sync Files?
In general, it is easy to setup Google backup and sync desktop. First of all, get Google Drive Backup and Sync download and install it on your computer. Then, let’s get started!
Firstly, sign in your Google Account.
Then, it will give you the general introduction of this application. It tells you that the files chosen to be backed up to Google Drive will be stored in a “Computers” tab in Google Drive.
Then, go to the important step of computer settings. Here, you have to specify which folder(s) you would like to sync to Google Drive. Also, you can specify the quality of upload photos and videos (Google photos backup and sync). See more detailed description about the >'>photo and video quality >>
After setting up sync from computer to Google Drive, the next step is to setup synchronization form Google Drive to My Computer.
Here, you should decide which folder(s) to be synced to local computer and where on the local area to save the synced items.
Finally, click “START” to start Google Backup and Sync service. Then, in the future days, Google Drive auto sync will backup files between certain folder on local PC and Google Drive 'Computers' tab.
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✐ Notes:
If you want to stop this task, just disconnect your Google account. Click this icon in the right side of taskbar > click More (three dots) and select “Preferences” > select “Settings” and choose “Disconnect account”.
You can also pause or resume Backup and Sync through the icon. If you want to uninstall Google Drive Backup and Sync tool, do it in Control Panel just like uninstalling any other software.
The above are the process of the first time use of Google Backup and Sync desktop. If you have already started its service and want to reset it, just do it through its taskbar icon and follow this guide.
Besides Windows systems, Google Backup and Sync tool also supports Mac operating systems. Yet, it can only backup and sync files between local and Google Drive.
Google Backup and Sync Free Alternative - Apply to General Cloud Drives
To backup and sync files between local storage and various cloud drives, such as Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive, you need to rely on Google Backup and Sync alternative – AOMEI Backupper Standard. Following are its main features:
✩ Basic Sync: you are allowed to sync local folders to external storages, NAS devices and network share, and vice versa. You can also sync to cloud drives, such as sync QNAP to Dropbox.
✩ Sync schedule: you can set the sync task to run automatically at specific time. You can select a time point in a day or select a day or several days in a week or month for the task to run.
✩ Other features like system/disk backup and disk clone can also be found in AOMEI Backupper.
Learn how to sync local files to a cloud drive via AOMEI Backupper below:
Step 1. Download, install and open AOMEI Backupper Standard Edition.
Download Freeware
Win 10/8.1/8/7/XP
Google Backup And Sync
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Step 2. In its Sync tab, select “Basic Sync”. To enjoy more advanced sync modes like “Mirror Sync” and “Real-Time Sync”, please upgrade to higher editions.
Google Backup And Sync Tool
Step 3.Click “Add Folder” to select the folder(s) you want to sync.
Tips: You can only select one folder in one time. To add more folders, just click the “+” icon after adding the first folder.
Step 4. Expand the drop-down menu of the second column and choose “Select a cloud drive”.
Step 5. Though AOMEI Backupper supports syncing to general cloud drives, it is based on the precondition that you have installed the cloud drive app on your computer. Here, I take OneDrive as an example. Select “OneDrive” and click “OK”.
Click “Options” in the bottom to write a comment for this sync operation so as to distinguish it from other sync tasks; and you can enable email notification to get an email informing you of the synchronization result.
Also, click “Schedule” to sync files/folders at fixed intervals without manual operations.
Step 6. Click “Start Sync” to carry out cloud drive backup and sync with Google Backup and Sync alternative.
Google Backup and Sync VS. AOMEI Backupper Standard
AOMEI Backupper Standard has many other features, but here I will only take its Sync function for comparison.
Google Backup and Sync | AOMEI Backupper Standard | |
Charge | Free | Free |
Supported OS | Windows, Mac | Windows PC |
Supported device | Desktop, laptop, notebook | Desktop, laptop, notebook |
Supported cloud drive | Google Drive | Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, SugarSync, hubiC, and CloudMe |
Sync from local to cloud | Yes | Yes |
Sync from cloud to local | Yes | No |
Sync from local to local/NAS/network share | No | Yes |
Schedule sync | No | Yes |
Conclusion
Now you know how to sync files between your computer and Google Drive with the Google Backup and Sync tool. If you want to sync local files to other cloud drives like OneDrive and Dropbox, you can pick the free alternative to Google Backup and Sync - AOMEI Backupper. You can also use AOMEI Backupper as hard drive transfer software to clone a hard drive. Don’t hesitate to give it a try!