Google announced plans to migrate customers of its consumer file syncing desktop service, Backup and Sync, to a new unified software dubbed Drive for desktop, which would be available to both consumers and businesses.
Google aims to begin onboarding customers on July 19th, 2021, and advises users who utilised Backup and Sync to convert by the end of September to avoid being locked out on October 1st.
Users of Backup and Sync will have to switch to the new programme (which is a rebranded version of Google’s enterprise file syncing software), but Google claims that business clients who already use Drive File Stream (aka Drive for desktop) should be OK.
The objective of combining the applications, according to Google, is to create “a robust and unified sync client” that combines the best features of both consumer and corporate services, making it easier to use and administer for IT professionals. It’s also a reversal of Google’s perplexing move in 2017 to divide Google Drive on desktop into two applications.
Anyone who has used Google’s prior services should be familiar with the desktop Drive client, according to Google’s blog post detailing it. Drive will provide you quick access to cloud-based files and images, and it will sync your files in the background so they’re always up to date.
The software, according to Google, can sync external storage devices like as flash drives to Drive, mirror data between Drive and local files on your desktop computer, and allow you to select whether to keep individual images and movies in Drive or Google Photos.
On Monday, July 19th, Google will begin migrating Backup and Sync users. Google has provided the following user transition timeline:
Cloud backup and Sync will provide a guided path to help customers move to Drive for desktop on July 19th, 2021.
On August 18th, 2021, customers who are still using Backup and Sync will begin to get in-app alerts encouraging them to upgrade to Drive for desktop.
After October 1st, 2021, any users who are still using Backup and Sync will be unable to login in. Users will need to switch to Drive for desktop to continue syncing with Drive and/or Google Photos.
