Google has launched a new program for Windows and Mac PCs to serve two of the most useful and best services of the Mountain View giant, namely Google Drive and Google Photos. Google Backup and Sync is a new program that replaces the previous Google Drive and Google Photos clients, in order to have a single tool to manage backups of personal files, documents, videos and photos .
Those who have installed the previous Google Photos and Google Drive programs on the PC can now remove them and use this unique client.
For those who have never used them, remember that Google Photos allows you to save photos online without space limitations, while with Google Drive you can take advantage of a 15 GB cloud space for each type of file for free.
The main difference between the new program and the old Google Drive client is not only in the merger with Google Photos, but also in the new function to automatically archive the files already saved on the computer disk in the cloud without having to create a new folder and without having to create copies of those files, keeping the photos, documents and all the files that you want to keep in their location.
This feature allows you to backup many folders and subfolders effortlessly.
Then download the Google Backup and synchronization program from the official website of Google Drive or from that of Google Photos and proceed with the normal installation.
You will then be asked to sign in with a Google Account.
In this regard, I recommend using the same Google or Gmail account used on the Android phone or iPhone, so that you can keep files and photos synchronized and be able to keep a single archive that can be used by any computer or device.
The next step is to choose which folders to include in Google's online backup .
You must therefore select the folders with documents and those with photos taking into account the limits of the free account.
By default, the Desktop, Documents and Images folders are automatically selected.
However, you can remove these folders to add as many as you want.
A special option asks how to save the photos and images in the specified folders to Google Drive .
If photos and videos are uploaded to Google Drive with High quality option, they will not count in the count of the remaining space, while if you choose to upload them with the original size, there will be the maximum limit of 15 GB (total space that is shared with Gmail ).
For the most part, photos will still be saved in their original size if they are no larger than 16 megapixels
16 Megapixel photos can be printed in a maximum size of 60 x 40 cm.
The videos can be saved without counting in the limits of space and in the number you want if they have a maximum resolution of 1080p.
Therefore, if you have photos larger than 16 Megapixels and videos with a resolution higher than 1080 there will be a significant decrease in the original quality.
Optionally you can choose to upload photos and videos to Google Photos instead of Google Drive, which is definitely recommended to be able to use the Google Photos app editing and creation tools and to be able to view photos and videos backed up using the Google app Photos on the smartphone.
Before pressing Next, you can click the network settings link to specify a proxy server and to limit the bandwidth of downloads and uploads.
The latter option is useful in order not to occupy all the internet speed by the backup and synchronization program.
Finally, going forward again, I am asked whether to synchronize my drive on this on this computer.
If you select the option, you are asked to indicate a folder on your computer that will contain all the files saved in Google Drive.
Using " My drive ", you can then choose which folders, tga the selected ones, must be duplicated and synchronized within this special Google Drive folder.
If you opt out of this feature, your files are saved online in the Google cloud without creating a copy on your computer .
Once the backup has started, the Google Backup and synchronization icon appears at the bottom of the notification area and by pressing it with the right button you can open the program preferences .
In the preferences you can choose how to delete files and folders by choosing whether to keep them in Google Drive if they are deleted from the computer, whether to also remove them from the Drive or whether to receive a request on what to do every time something is deleted.
You can also activate or deactivate the option to automatically backup photos and videos to the camera or the USB stick that is connected to the computer.
When using this backup and synchronization function, it must be taken into account that the free account limit is always 15 GB, which is a total space granted by Google for Gmail attachments, for photos uploaded in their original size and for files in Google Drive.
Videos larger than 10 GB and photos larger than 75 MB or 100 Megapixels are always excluded from Google backup.
Smaller images of size 256x256 are also ignored.
Google Drive and Photos support the image formats .jpg, .png, .webp and some RAW files, then also the video formats .mpg, .mod, .mmv, .tod, .wmv, .asf, .avi, .divx, .mov, .m4v, .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .m2t, .m2ts, .mts and .mkv.
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