
This way, changes and deletions in any of your files or folders won’t be synced and you can keep a copy even if you delete the file either in your hard drive or your virtual drive.
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If you choose to stream, however, you can choose to disconnect your online and offline file versions by saving your file (drag and drop or copy and paste) to your virtual drive. That means deletions are also included, so when you delete a copy, both copies will be removed. If you mirror your files in Drive for Desktop, every change in your files will sync across both online and offline versions. This means there’s always a copy of your file or folder in one storage space when it’s deleted in the other. In Backup and Sync, you can choose not to sync deletes between your computer and Google Drive. Here are the main differences between mirroring and streaming files from some Google support documentation: You can also choose whether certain computer files will sync with the online version or if you’d like them to be disconnected. To access all your files, including those available offline, the Drive for Desktop app must be running.

While Backup and Sync is mostly used to sync and store Drive locally on your computer, Drive for Desktop streams all your content from the cloud. Google Backup and Sync and Drive for Desktop have essentially the same objective: to provide a sync solution where users can access their files in a much more convenient way. While Drive File Stream is essentially the same with Drive for Desktop, Backup and Sync users need to note some key differences (and similarities) between the past features and today’s Drive for Desktop functionalities to adopt the new solution more easily. This tool will address IT management challenges caused by the confusion between their two previous sync solutions, Drive File Stream and Backup and Sync. Google recently announced a unified sync solution for all their users called Drive for Desktop.
