Your Google Drive will appear as an external drive on your computer. Google Drive File Stream: this is only available to users with Google Workspace (formerly called G Suite, and before that Google Apps) accounts.Instead, the entire contents of your Google Drive will be fully downloaded to your computer, except for any folders you exclude (this is like disabling Dropbox Smart Sync, OneDrive Files On Demand, or iCloud Drive “Optimize Mac Storage”).

This software does not offer “smart sync” or “files on demand” capabilities like Dropbox, OneDrive, and iCloud Drive, in which the full contents of your Google Drive are shown to you without the files actually taking up space on your computer. (Dropbox and OneDrive have similar “selective sync” capabilities iCloud Drive does not.) Your Google Drive contents appear as a Mac folder in your home folder, same as with Dropbox and OneDrive. It downloads a copy of everything in your Google Drive to your computer, except for folders you can choose to manually exclude, making them only visible on the web.

Backup and Sync from Google: this is available to anyone with any kind of Google account, free or paid.

Are you surprised? This is all about to change, but right now, these are: To date, using Google Drive software on a Mac (or Windows PC, for that matter) has been confusing, because there are two entirely different pieces of software that provide your files. (If you open a document from the Finder that was created with Google Docs, it will open in your web browser, since there is no dedicated Mac application for it.) This is, of course, the way Dropbox and iCloud Drive are typically used.

You can just save items into it and copy items out of it directly without uploading or download, by using the Finder or another Mac application. While it’s possible to use Google Drive entirely on the web, and my guess is that it’s what most people do, a much more pleasant experience, in my opinion, is to install software on your computer that makes your Google Drive appear as though it is any other folder on your computer. Google Drive has been gradually displacing Dropbox over many years as the cloud drive of choice for those who need to share documents, and who are not embedded in Microsoft’s world. There are a ton of cloud storage providers at this point: Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, Apple iCloud Drive, Google Drive, and more.

Disable dropbox smart sync