How to backup your mac or pc to google drive

Everything everywhere and synced with Google Drive

Mobility is a growing trend, both professionally and personally, and such mobility necessarily involves having all our data and files anywhere, anytime, from any device. Thus, cloud storage services such as DropBox, iCloud, OneDrive, Box, etc., are gaining in popularity. And it has been precisely the Google Drive service that has just taken an important leap forward in this line by officially launching “Backup and Sync” (Backup & Sync), a tool compatible with both Mac and Windows and with which we will be able to make backup copies of everything we want.

Until now, there was a Google Drive application, what difference is there between this and the new tool offered by the search engine giant? Well, basically, Drive acted like a normal folder on our computer, in such a way that everything we stored there would be available through Google Drive anywhere, and vice versa.

The novelty now lies in the fact that we can select what we want from our computer (My Documents, Music, Videos folders, Desktop files…) in such a way that any changes we make to our equipment will be synchronized through Google Drive, and thus we will have a continuous and synchronized backup of all our things.

As you may have already correctly imagined, “Backup and Synchronization” is a totally free tool that is now available for all Mac and Windows users. With it we can synchronize both files and folders and photos in Google Photos, now remember that Google Drive has 15 GB of free storage. If it is used, if we want to continue with the service, we must expand with any of the available storage plans. Now you understand better why "Backup and Sync" is free, right?

How to back up

Making synchronized backups of your Mac or PC to Google Drive is really easy. You just have to follow a few instructions at the beginning and from there, you can almost forget:

1.Download the Backup and Synchronization tool

The first step is to download “Backup and Sync” on your Mac or Windows PC. To do this, visit the website of the app and click on the blue button that says "Download Backup and synchronization", click "Accept and download" in the window that appears, and the download will start immediately.

When the download is complete, open the file "installbackupandsync.exe" (PC) or "installbackupandsync.dmg" (on Mac) and follow the instructions on the screen for the application to install on your computer. And if it asks you to restart your computer, do so.

2.Login and select the folders you want to sync

Now that you have the “Backup and synchronization” tool installed on your computer, the time has come to configure it. When you start the app, the first thing you need to do is log in with your Google account. After that, select the folders on your computer that you want to continually back up to Drive. This means that all the files in the selected folders will be immediately copied to the cloud (the time it will take depends on the total volume), and as soon as you add a new file to one of these folders, it will be automatically copied to Drive.

Remember that you can choose to back up only some folders or all of them, which basically would be to make a complete backup of your computer. However, we remind you again that in Google you only have 15 GB of free storage shared between Photos, Gmail and Drive. If you need more space, you can purchase a higher storage plan here: € 1.99 per month for 100 GB, € 9.99 per month for 1 TB, or € 99.99 per month for 10 TB of cloud storage,

You can also back up a smartphone, camera, SD card, or other devices. Simply connect the phone or camera to the Mac or PC, click on "USB devices and SD cards" at the bottom, and select the files you want to upload to the cloud from the device you have connected.

3.Customize settings

The backups start NOW, but you can still, and should, make some adjustments to make sure the tool works exactly as you need it.

Size of photos and videos. Choose between uploading them in their original size (what Google calls “High Quality”) that will subtract storage space from your Google account, or that are compressed to save space (photos larger than 16MP are resized to 16MP and videos larger than 1080p are resized to 1080p), in which case the storage will be free and unlimited. Delete options, that is, what happens when you delete a file from a synchronized folder? Here you can choose between three options:
- Delete items everywhere: When you delete something from your computer it is also automatically deleted in Drive. And of course it works the other way around too which means if you delete a file in Drive it will be deleted on your computer. Don't delete items everywhere: when you delete something on your computer it will stay on Drive and vice versa ask me before delete items everywhere: when you delete something on StuffIt Mac or PC, “Backup and Sync” will ask if you want to delete it on Drive too. It also works in reverse.
Google Photos. If you check this box, the images and videos located in the folders selected in step two will automatically be uploaded to the Google Photos service. If you don't select it, the images will only be uploaded to Drive, so they won't appear, for example, in the Google Photos app on your iPhone, iPad or Android smartphone. However, there is an option in the Google Photos settings that activating it will allow you to view Google Drive images and videos in your photo library. Other adjustments. On the left side, you have other settings available that allow you to choose whether "Backup and Sync" will open when you start your computer, a warning appears when you remove items from a shared folder, and more.

View your backup files

Once you've started using Google's "Backup and Sync" tool on your Mac or PC, you can easily see the files you've backed up to the cloud. To do this, all you have to do is visit the Google Drive website and click on the "Equipment" tab that you will see on the left margin.

Also, if you have backed up files from more than one computer, you will see a different folder for each of your computers. Just open the appropriate folder to search for and access the file you want.